Customer Feedback Yields New Polk Reports

R.L. Polk & Co. has launched Polk's On-Line Media Reports, a new offering that provides online access to interactive reports for the media industry. The reports offer media companies information about the automotive industry they can use to better communicate with automotive advertising buyers. These new reports are just one product geared toward Polk's media company customers.

The reports contain data that helps media professionals understand automotive buying trends and market share and helps them make more informed advertising recommendations to their automotive customers.

Because customers are the ones using your products, they truly are the best equipped to know how to make them better. In this case, Polk customers asked for an easier way to use the Polk data--and Polk responded with these new online reports. This new product announcement also highlights the diversity of Polk's customer base, which includes the media companies for which the online reports are targeted, and others like automotive manufacturers and dealers, and market research firms. Polk appears to be very good at manipulating its data to make it work for everyone. The company is really making the most of its content.

Publishers in the Driver's Seat

Just a few days ago, Answers.com (NASDAQ: ANSW) put out a press release noting a sudden 28% drop in its site traffic, and blaming the drop on recent changes by Google to its search algorithms. There's more than a little bit of irony here, because Google has been using Answers.com as its default content provider for users seeking definitions of specific terms. What Google is giving Answers.com with one hand it now appears to be taking back with the other.

As several search engine pundits have noted, when other companies complain publicly that they have been hurt by changes to the Google search algorithms, Google typically responds with the corporate equivalent of a shrug.

Occasionally however, Google does respond. As I noted in a post back in March, a company called Topix.net which wanted to start using the topix.com domain name, made a public plea to Google to "transfer" its search engine rankings to the new domain so it wouldn't have to take a traffic hit. Google's response was that companies shouldn't become so reliant on search engines for their traffic. That struck me as an incredibly disingenuous statement at the time, but I wonder if the market isn't now beginning to take that statement to heart.

As it happens, Answers.com is in the midst of trying to acquire Dictionary.com, and plans to go through with the acquisition despite the precipitous drop in traffic to its own site. Rationale? Dictionary.com has a very high percentage of "direct traffic," traffic that comes directly to Dictionary.com and not via search engines.

What we may be seeing is the start of a new, more nuanced way of operating in the traffic economy in which all web visitors will no longer be considered equal. Quite possibly, we'll see start to see websites with substantial direct traffic being valued more than those sites with primarily search-derived traffic.

Implications? Huge. Google, by endlessly tinkering with its algorithms, has created an environment where it's increasingly difficult to build a secure and sustainable web property. As a consequence, websites will put a new emphasis on building direct traffic, simultaneously increasing their enterprise value while reducing the power of the search engines. And the primary beneficiaries will be established sites with large repositories of quality content that users want and need to use repeatedly and will navigate to directly. This shift won't happen overnight, but if I'm calling it right, a fundamental, tectonic shift may be underway that will put content providers with loyal repeat visitors in the driver's seat.

Labels: algorithms, answers.com, dictionary.com, direct traffic, google

Nielsen Leverages Product Line to Create New Offering

The Nielsen Company has launched a new offering that will enable its advertiser customers to target television audiences by demographic group and lifestyle. The new product combines several Nielsen strengths--its NPOWER television ratings analysis tool, its Claritas target marketing services and its PRIZM NE lifestyle segmentation product.

NPOWER is used by Nielsen television clients to perform customized analysis of television viewing based on Nielsen's People Meter database. With the PRIZM NE product, Claritas classifies 66 segments of the U.S. population based on factors such as socio-economic data--income, age, race, occupation, education and household composition--and lifestyle attributes of interest to advertisers, such as when people vacation, what vehicles they drive and their favorite brands. By using descriptive names for the segments, Nielsen will provide a profile of the groups and information about their media habits for its advertising customers. Some of those segments include: blue blood estates (the nation's second-wealthiest group; business executives, managers and professionals who earn six-figure salaries), young digerati (the nation's tech-savvy singles and couples living in fashionable neighborhoods on the urban fringe) and bohemian mix (a progressive mix of young singles and couples, students and professionals).

Nielsen expects customers to be able to conduct more complete analysis as a result of the combining the functionality of NPOWER and PRIZM NE. This entire initiative represents Nielsen finally pooling its resources across divisional boundaries to launch new product offerings for customers. Separately, customers already find much value in Nielsen's products. Together, they will undoubtedly find a complete solution. Nielsen can probably find other synergies between additional product offerings and perhaps this is just the beginning of the media giant making the most of its assets to build a even more robust portfolio of offerings for the marketplace.

Reed Construction Builds a Community

Reed Business Information has launched Reed Construction Dashboard connected by iLumen, a financial information network targeted specifically for the building and construction industry. The new offering is designed to attract public and private builders.

The network, available at www.ReedConstructionDashboard.com, offers a variety of features, such as expert statistical analysis, anonymous peer feedback on issues, opportunities and best practices within the industry, in addition to confidential contact with lenders and advisors. The site also offers benchmarking to track trends within regional and national sub-segments and will soon launch a free networking community accessible to users who register on the site.

Reed partnered with iLumen, a financial information company that launched its own online private company marketplace, the iLumen Financial Information Network.

The launch of this new Reed network is certainly a sign of the times. Information providers are no longer just relying on more traditional information sources to attract customers. They are jumping on the social network bandwagon and creating more of a community atmosphere for their customers. It's definitely a smart strategy right now, and if Reed can effectively direct its readers to this new dashboard, they will most likely be engaged.

Chain Store Guide Launches Customer-Friendly Site

Chain Store Guide has launched a new cross-industry database web site that enables uses to access the company's database to create customized databases for their sales leads, targeted campaigns, research and analysis. By logging on to www.csg.DataIntel.com, users can utilize quite a bit of functionality--they can query Chain Store Guide data from the desktop and they can target their research by industry or key personnel. They can also create custom mailing lists and download records into an Excel spreadsheet.

Customers previously were able to only purchase sales leads and mailing lists on an as-needed basis. So the introduction of the CSG Data Intel database, which contains 189,000 personnel names with titles across all retain channels, will enable customers to more easily reap the benefits from the data about restaurants and retailers.

No registration is necessary to begin using the database. Users can sort their information based on a variety of criteria, such as industry, business type, geography, size, product lines and personnel lines. Data is also comprised of headquarters, regional and divisional offices, distribution centers and wholesalers. Pricing works like this: a free online price quote is presented with each query. Users can purchase and export data on a per-record basis, paying only for records that meet their search requirements with a $300 minimum purchase.

If you make your information more usable, people are going to use it. Chain Store Guide responded to feedback from customers who said they wanted easier access to their data and the CSG Data Intel database was born. In today's Internet world, customers want their information whenever and wherever. They feel there should be no boundaries around their information access. And there don't have to be. At first glance, it looks like Chain Store Guide has launched a product that will yield great success in both the short-term as customers try it out, and the long-term, as a easily accessible, reliable information service. This is definitely a smart product launch. Look for Chain Store Guide and other data providers to use this as a model for improving the functionality and usability of other databases.