Business at Warp Speed - Get Ready for the New Digital Revolution

[Cross-posted from Associated Industries of Massachusetts.]

All around us, things are accelerating. People, data, and information are all moving faster than ever before, accelerating at a pace that defies our understanding of the world and what is (or was thought to be) possible. 4G speeds, Google Instant, Tweets and check-ins, Facebook sign-ups, mobile device activations, video uploads – everything around us is growing and moving at exponential rates. Consider some of the statistics: in 2008, 300 million people were on social networks. That number is now over 900 million. In 2008 1.5 million people had visited Twitter. Last year over 190 million. In 2008 Google’s Android mobile platform had just launched. There are now over 300,000 Android device activations every day, and that number is growing. (Check out a really fun video showing the growth of Android here.)

And consider what has been happening in Middle Eastern countries of late. Via mobile phones and social networks, information is spreading and people are organizing at rates never before possible, allowing for rapid mobilization of ideas and massive social change.

In this world of constant connectivity, there is no doubt that fast is better than slow. From a consumer standpoint, you reap the benefits directly – connect to friends all over the world on Facebook, video chat with them on Skype, watch videos of the Grammy’s on YouTube, download Eminem’s latest to your iPod, search on Google for the shoes he wore, buy them on online…wait, sold out online?…check your local retailer’s inventory on Google Product Search, have your Android phone give you directions to your local mall, text your friends that you’ll meet them there, check in on Foursquare when you arrive… and on and on it goes, the flow of digital information accelerating at a rate that seems almost unimaginable.

So how do businesses keep up and take part in this digital evolution, nay, revolution? How do companies make use of this acceleration to reach consumers in meaningful ways? How do they change their own behaviors to keep up with the world around them?

Companies should look to get ahead of the consumer and these digital trends by focusing on 4 key characteristics: Google calls them the "4 Be’s"…

Be relevant – Mobile is how the world will connect to the Internet in the future. Mobile will be bigger than desktop in 5 years. Mobile searches grew 500% in the last two years. Mobile is what is relevant for today's and tomorrow's consumer. What is your company’s mobile strategy? Do you have one? Can it scale for the future?

Be found – Search is still the web’s killer app. With the proliferation of information, Search is how people find it and make use of it. Can people find you? Can they find your business and the products or services you offer?

Be engaging – We no longer live in a push advertising world. Consumers want and expect a dialog with companies. Social media like Facebook and Twitter make this possible. Online video has not only changed the face of entertainment but also the way companies can communicate. Companies and brands need to figure out how to be part of the conversation and how to effectively engage users across the entire spectrum of social media. What is your social media strategy? How are you effectively using online video to engage users?

Be accountable – the Internet has made real-time marketing a reality. You can constantly and continuously improve your digital efforts by using powerful analytical tools and the data they provide to make smart decisions. Things like Google Analytics, Insights for Search and others offer more data than ever before. How are you using it to make the best decisions for your company?

Success or failure in these four areas will determine your future. As “screen time” becomes mostly digital, as mobile becomes the norm for the masses, as consumers take more control of the dialog with companies and brands, and as everything becomes more real-time, businesses will need to evolve to keep pace…or run the risk of getting left behind.

Posted by: Seth van der Swaagh, National Industry Manager, AdWords

Not a Leap

No, it's not a leap year this year and here we are at the end of February.


The ES liked the VAL of Friday's RTH and that's what I started with, trading towards the gap close.


The market just popped during London's mid morning and I had to re-write my vision. After that there were a couple more trades, as you can see from the chart, until a short when the RTH morning's top was made. Flo did her bit in keeping me on the right side of the trades. It's not for nothing that there is the saying "Go with the Flo!"

MagnetStreet: From real estate to bridal customers, lessons learned . . .

[Cross-posted from the Google Retail Advertising Blog]

In 2005, MagnetStreet, a custom magnet developer, was 80% reliant on its Real Estate customers. Although Real Estate customers kept MagnetStreet employees busy from August to November, the rest of the year was stagnant. In order to resolve this staffing and seasonal production slump, to acquire new customers and to expand its product portfolio, MagnetStreet looked to Google and its suite of free tools.

MagnetStreet realized they were not utilizing an SEO or SEM strategy. So they leveraged Google's Keyword Tool to learn more about terms such as “magnets” and “promotional magnets", and how they could expand their keyword selection to be in front of actively searching magnet customers.

David Baird, Vice President of Marketing at MagnetStreet, was surprised to find out that “save-the-date wedding magnets” stood out as keywords of rapidly growing interest. This new product keyword trend spurred an information-gathering project that started with understanding what a save-the-date magnet was, and ended with a solution regarding how to enter the wedding market.

MagnetStreet was also pleased to learn, via Google Trends and Insights for Search, that this new venture revealed an interest peak in January, with a more consistent level of interest throughout the year than the real estate market. These Google tools also offered geographic data that gave MagnetStreet the opportunity to intelligently market to the local areas that showed the most interest in their product suite.

MagnetStreet continues to use Insights for Search to help them expand into new markets, discover additional product offerings, and to inform design, staffing and media decisions. They have expanded into selling wedding invitations and programs in addition to various occasion invitations and announcements.

When looking back at his business’ success, Mr. Baird credits Google’s tools with helping him to make smarter, low risk decisions and giving him the opportunity as a small business owner to compete with Big Box players.

Click here for more information on this success story.

Posted by Keri Overman, The Google Retail Team

Daily Profit Limit, Daily Loss Limit

Very early in the blog I spoke about a guy I knew in Los Angeles. He lived near Malibu and traded T-Bonds, the hot market of the mid 1980s. The S and P was just getting going and a 2 handle move was big.


The guy had a simple philosophy; he made 8 ticks in the T-Bond every day and then hopped into his Porsche and drove down to the beach. That was it. He increased size as he wanted to make more money.


I always thought there was something clever about this but my own work ethic always got in the way and I think/thought that you should keep on working while the market pays you to do it.


But maybe not. The stats below are taken from a TradeStation optimisation that we ran testing what daily profit and daily loss limit is the best. So many of my students have TradeStation, I opened a TS account again so I can duplicate their trading with the same data. BTW, I'm using what TradeStation calls "Momentum Bars" using the range I want constructed out of 1 tick data. These are most like the Range Bars I am used to in MarketDelta and other charting software.


The stats are quite interesting. The algo, periodicity (3 tick momentum (range) bars) and date range (6 months) and time traded, gave a daily profit limit ($750/contract) more than twice the daily loss limit ($350/contract), a very logical result.


What is even more interesting, I can use this to decide which are the best times of the day to trade in order to get the best stats. In this case, Flo trades from 9.30am NY time (the beginning of RTH) until 12.10pm NY time (2 hours and 49 minutes later). She trades limit orders so if she gets filled and she mostly has, then there is no slippage.


The more I use my FloBot to trade and test, the more I like it as it provides so much information and in fact makes me more money. Using a 'bot can not only bring CP to more people but it can do it much, much more quickly. I can override the exits and make even more by scaling out and using trailing stops. I've programmed that into Flo too and I'll share some ideas about that in later posts.
 

Summary

Monthly Profitability

Equity Curve

 

I was trading the ES today. It was an obvious gap day and I was short into the number and picked up a couple of points. I looked to re-short but Flo would have none of it. She just wanted the long side going into RTH. She enforced my discipline. Go Flo!

Going Google across the 50 States: Kentucky window manufacturer leaves desktop software behind

Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Steve Stepp, IT Manager of Sun Windows, a manufacturer of high quality windows and doors serving Owensboro, Kentucky and surrounding areas. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

Sun Windows is a family-owned business that dates back to the 1930’s when V. E. Anderson, Sr. invented and built storm windows in his garage at night and sold them door-to-door during the day. Today, Sun Windows is run by his grandson, Frank Anderson, and offers an expansive product line of high quality, energy efficient windows and doors with a focus on customer service.

The window and door business is seasonal, following trends in new construction and peaking in summer. At the height, we have around 120 employees made up of about 80% production workers who manufacture the products, and 20% office staff and outside sales who use email and other office software regularly. Keeping everyone connected and communicating effectively is one of my main goals.

We originally used a local provider for web hosting and email and there was a lot of downtime when email just wouldn’t work. I’d get phone calls from individuals throughout the company and would have to contact our email provider about once a month. Adding to this, we received significantly more spam than good email. Sun Windows even got flagged as a spammer because all our emails went through the local provider. We’re a small company and everyone wears a lot of hats so these issues took up a lot of time I didn’t really have.

I used Gmail at home and had even set up Google Apps for my personal website so I knew about its robust spam-filtering and other great features. Given all the email problems we were having at work, I decided to switch the company to Google Apps and have never looked back. The amount of spam in our inboxes is almost nothing and having web-based email accessible from any Internet connection is a big plus for everyone. At the time of the switch, I hadn’t even considered the added benefits of other products like Google Calendar and Google Docs.

After setting up email, we quickly created shared calendars to keep various departments organized, track company events and schedule customer visits for the field service unit. Then we slowly started to use Google Docs. Most people in the company were familiar and comfortable with desktop office software but once they realized the power of collaborating and sharing documents online, almost everyone switched to Google Docs. Production line supervisors use a spreadsheet to track labor hours at the plant, and sales reps create and share customer presentations. We’ve also moved existing documents over to Google Docs which we use to store files of any type.

Now when new computers are purchased, I don’t renew our Microsoft® Office licences. The company saves money but even more importantly, I save time in administering licenses, installations, security patches, and training. Google Apps has been one of the smartest decisions I’ve made for Sun Windows and I continually look for new ways to take advantage of it to improve how we work.

Posted by Steve Stepp, IT Manager, Sun Windows

The "Oyl Bidness"

I loved J.R. I remember when the world stopped to watch Dallas on TV. Mixing Oil and the glamour of America's rich was a great formula. I saw it in action in real life too. In early 1971 I was in Denver and had dinner in the Brown Palace Club and the place was filled with the oil elite of the day.


There is said to be plenty of oil, yet we are paying £1.29 per litre here in London, about $USD7.92 per gallon. Yes, $7.92. One of my cars is a Mercedes ML500 and it costs over $170 to fill it up. It was only 11 years ago that I used to fill up my daughters' Toyota Echo in the States for $10.


I was driving through Spain in the early 1970's (1973?) when the oil crisis started. I had bought a BMW in Switzerland to drive around Europe. I pulled up at a petrol (gas) station to fill up one evening, somewhere on the South East coast. I did not have any pesetas, the Spanish currency at that time, and told the garage guy that I wanted to pay with U.S. Dollars. I received a very firm "Non". The dollar at that time was falling and this guy didn't want anything to do with it - the world's reserve currency. It was scary.


The world is getting scary again. Information is moving at the speed of thought. People are reacting to news instantly as markets are there 24x6.


The new normal is like a website that is "Under Construction". Opportunity is not just knocking, it is banging the door down.

If you wanted to trade today's Gap trade on the ES then you would have had to start earlier than RTH because it was all over by then. Luckily I'm here in Europe and recognised the beginning of the Gap close. Basically, the Gap had an 80% chance of 50% closing according to my back testing so I did not have much of a risk being early. As you can see, Flo was on the ball and made sure I didn't miss the opportunity.

Tips and tricks for Travel advertisers

In 2010 people researched their travel options more frequently, for longer periods of time, and on various online channels. This is good news for Travel marketers because you now have more opportunities to reach customers -- and many of these channels can help you more effectively promote your businesses. With marketing tools like YouTube and display ads, Travel marketers can actually show images of their destinations. For example, Hawaii’s official travel site showcases amazing beaches and palm trees on their YouTube channel. Don’t these videos make you want to take a trip to Hawaii?

We saw travel bookings pick up in 2010 and we’re expecting this trend to continue into 2011. This is the year of reaching your customers at every phase of the research process -- and compelling them with visual imagery. We’ve included our recommendations for doing so below:

Seasonality: Spring break travelers don’t start researching their options in March. Our research shows that the average traveler spends almost two months researching travel options before booking. As such, we suggest using Insights for Search to see when certain destinations are on the rise -- you can plan your search ad campaigns based on this seasonality. For example, searches for ‘hotel cancun’ actually peak in January.

Search: Our research shows that 78% of travel transactions involve research on a search engine.* In fact, the average traveler searches eight times prior to booking. In addition to timing your search ads campaigns with proper search seasonality, we recommend taking advantage of new search formats. For example, if you are advertising a destination, you can create a free listing on Google Places and include detailed information and pictures.

Content pages: Rather than consulting travel agents, consumers are turning to online reviews, videos, and blogs. This means consumers are more engaged and involved in the research process -- it also means you have more opportunities to reach them as they research their options. The average hotel booker, for example, conducts 20 research sessions on multiple sites prior to transacting.* What’s more, ad inventory on these sites is generally less competitive than search: The median Travel advertiser’s cost per acquisition on the Google Display Network is 2% less than that on search.** You can even measure the impact of your display ads using Campaign Insights.

YouTube: 81% of all travelers who watch online videos do so on YouTube. And the number of travel-related online videos has increased dramatically since 2009. Video is a compelling way to showcase travel destinations -- If you are marketing a destination site or a hotel, we recommend shooting video footage (it doesn’t have to be high-budget or flashy) and uploading this content to a YouTube Brand Channel and promoting this channel on your website. From there, you can explore advertising options to drive additional traffic to your channel.

Mobile: Personal travelers more than doubled their usage of mobile devices for travel purposes in the past year.** Research also shows that among travel consumers, purchase intent is five times higher on mobile ads than on desktop ads.*** New mobile ad technologies present a fantastic opportunity to reach these customers when they’re ready to actually take the leap of booking their trip. In particular -- and for Travel advertisers who do not have mobile websites -- we recommend enabling the Click to Call option, which allows customers to call you directly from their mobile phones.

The possibilities are endless -- and if you reach a customer at various phases throughout the research process with compelling messages and images, chances are he or she will be more likely to book with you. Have fun this year!

*Data from a ComScore Behavioral study.

** Data from an Internal Google study.

*** Data from an InsightExpress study.

Posted by: Sarah Travis, Team Manager, AdWords Travel Team