CQ Roll Call: Going Big on Analysis

The superheated interest in Big Data and associated analytics continues unabated. As we have long noted however, while there are many ways that data publishers can tap into opportunities created by Big Data, they themselves tend not to be sources of Big Data. That’s not a bug: it’s a feature. So much of the value-add of data publishers come from distilling, organizing and synthesizing of data. Indeed, those data publishers that continue with the old-style model of delivering giant data dumps to their customers are the most challenged players in this more sophisticated and demanding environment.

But despite this intense focus on Big Data and analytics, let’s not forget that there is still real value in all types of analysis, no matter how it’s created. I was reminded of this today while reviewing a new offering from CQ Roll Call. If you’re not familiar with CQ Roll Call, you can think of it as a giant legislative tracking service. For the inside players in Washington, it’s a must-have: it’s the place to go to hear developments first, along with authoritative analysis. But CQ Roll Call also has an “inside sports” aspect to it: an endless series of details wash over you, and if you’re not deeply immersed in a specific piece of legislation, for example, it’s hard to get up to 40,000 feet and see what’s going on over time and in context.

CQ Roll Call is starting to address this need (and likely a latent market as well), with a series of detailed backgrounders, all on high profile topics. They’ve produced 45 of these policy backgrounders to start, with more to come.

What really caught my eye is that these backgrounders, unlike some many that are cranked out by publishers, are designed to be dynamic: they stay up to date. Also of interest is that they are not divorced from the company’s core data product: they link to CQ reporting, the actual text of each bill and other CQ research. It’s an elegant way to tie together a lot of the company’s products with a simple overview designed to encourage drill-downs by those who want to get deeper into the subject. CQ Roll Call touts these reports as a sort of “Wikipedia for policy wonks.”

The simple insight here is that even in the era of Big Data, ALL analysis products remain useful and valuable, and even more so if your content is fast-changing and intricate. Drawing meaning from your content is what your customer do with your data: do if for them and they’ll not only thank you for it, they’ll probably also pay you for it!

Content, Technology or Something Better?

There has been a recent flurry of head-scratching (here, here and here) on the topic of when a media company should better be thought of as a technology company. It’s a good question, but it’s a question muddied by the slippery, umbrella term "media." I am of the belief that if you create and publish articles, you are a media company, even if you happen to be running on a proprietary content management platform.

But when it comes to data publishers, things aren’t so clear. Data is a form of content that plays very well with software. In fact, most data products would be a lot less valuable if they couldn’t be used effectively by software. The real question is: whose software? Those data publishers whose roots were in print directories had the business mentality of most print publishers, which was to ship out big fat books filled with information and let the customer figure out to how extract value from them. When these publishers first began to offer electronic versions, they followed the same approach, shipping out Excel sheets and letting the customers once again figure out what to do with them. Those who did wrap software around their data were known mostly for creating really bad software, and found that their customers were asking, sometimes begging, just to get the raw data without the software. This led to the conventional wisdom that publishers couldn’t and shouldn’t create software, and technology companies couldn’t and shouldn’t create content. In theory, the two camps were supposed to partner, thus marrying great content and software. But it never seemed to work. There were too many issues around revenue splits and who owned the customer, not to mention a bevy of marketing, sales and operational issues. It’s only been fairly recently that most data publishers woke up to the fact that that selling raw data was not only leaving serious money on the table, it was eroding their perceived value as well. Thus the smart ones began to invest to bring in the talent and tools they needed to create top-notch software customized not only to their data, but to the needs of their customers. The results have been uniformly brilliant. Data wrapped in (good) software means higher price points, more customer engagement and better renewal rates. It’s also forced publishers to get a lot closer to their customers, because you can’t build good software unless you fully understand its use cases. As I see it, data publishers can fairly lay claim to being technology companies. Indeed, many now report spending more on software development than content. But when you think about it, why would a data publisher want to be considered a tech company? In a way, that’s slumming. After all, what’s more valuable: a salesforce productivity tool, or a salesforce productivity tool pre-populated with high quality and regularly updated sales leads?

Adwords Now Promote Tele-Measurability

Google has just launched a new Adwords feature that offers lots of useful applications for online marketers. It’s so slick, I am a little surprised it hasn’t received more press. In a nutshell, Google Adwords can now track and report not only how many people click on an ad, but how many people call based on an ad.

Yes, you’ve doubtless heard claims like this before, but this one seems pretty solid and pretty powerful as well. Here’s how it works.

Google Adwords  dynamically inserts a key telephone number (supplied by Google) into all places you specify on your landing pages or even your full website. Put another way, anyone who gets to your website via Adwords will see a Google-supplied phone number and everyone who gets to your website any other way will see your regular phone number. You can format the Google numbers to match your website look and feel, and the phone numbers will be dynamically supplied for up to 90 days.

While Google doesn’t mention B2B applications specifically, you can immediately see the benefits. Few B2B buyers click through from an ad and immediately place an order. More likely than not, there’s a phone call involved, and even then, the phone call might not happen immediately. With this new feature, it’s possible to measure and track this unique aspect of B2B buying which is well understood, but has been devilishly difficult to measure.

The Value of Volume

A fascinating story in the New York Times takes us inside a planning session between Facebook and a major consumer products marketer, Reckitt Benckiser (RB). RB wants to market its fish oil nutritional supplement via Facebook. After listening to Facebook executives pitch a large and broad marketing campaign, the RB marketing manager stops the conversation to note that he’s interested in using Facebook because of its targeting capabilities, not because of its massive reach. He suggests that perhaps RB would be better served by targeting known fish oil buyers as well as buyers of other products that are suggestive of the consumer having an interest in heart health – a key benefit of taking fish oil.

The representatives from Facebook, rather than embracing a targeted approach, instead pushed back. It wasn’t that Facebook couldn’t deliver this highly targeted audience – it could. The primary objection of the Facebook team was that a highly targeted marketing campaign like this would be “too expensive.” And keep in mind that RB is a major global marketer, with annual sales pushing $15 billion.

If you find it odd that Facebook is pushing marketers to broadly-based marketing campaigns, the underlying logic is even more intriguing. The Facebook “advertising strategist” in the meeting explains the company’s view by saying that advertising on Facebook was like firing a shotgun. My early education in the world of direct marketing taught me that the goal was to use information to move away from sloppy, imprecise shotgun marketing, to precise rifle-like marketing. Perhaps this strategist simply butchered this well-known metaphor. But as you read deeper into this article, you start to see that Facebook really wants to sell big, volume campaigns with only minimal targeting.

You probably see where I am going with this. Facebook develops this truly massive and engaged audience. On top of this, it has unbelievably detailed and accurate information about this audience, and can target against these data. Yet when a large and sophisticated consumer marketer wants to take full advantage of this deep targeting capability, Facebook proposes a mass media solution instead. Sure, Facebook is happy to tweak this huge campaign once it rolled out, but Facebook clearly wants you to start big and whittle your campaign down over time.

Why is Facebook seemingly disavowing the precision targeting that is ostensibly its greatest asset and differentiator? While the article doesn’t provide any numbers, the likely answer is this: money. You make more money selling volume than precision.

I saw this many years ago in the direct marketing world. Everyone there preached the gospel of targeting – rifle precision over shotgun sloppiness. I listened to endless presentations by clever people showing how you could use data to identify and reach the exact best prospects for your product. But try to actually purchase these highly targeted names, and you got the exact same tap dance now being performed by Facebook. The reality is that nobody with a ten million name database wanted to sell you just 500 of those names – your absolutely best prospects. Direct marketing was a volume-based business: you made your money selling big lists, not precisely targeted lists (which truth be told were kind of a hassle to produce anyway). It was a business where you talked targeting and sold saturation.

And lest you think I am pointing a finger only at media companies, be assured that marketers need to sign up for their fair share of the blame. For example, I see B2B media companies working so hard to deliver fresh, hot, highly qualified sales leads to marketers who in many cases won’ t buy them unless the media company can guarantee a minimum volume each month. Quantity trumps quality – again.

Like it or not, there’s an important lesson here for those of who run media and data companies. Precision and targeting are great – but only to a point. Marketing and sales activities are inherently sloppy and imprecise activities, and that’s why they depend on volume. And we also now must acknowledge that in a digital world, mass marketing is cheap and can often yield powerful market research insights. That’s why, despite all the advances that have been made in increasing precision, there will be continuing value in volume.

Deals of Excellence

It’s been a banner few weeks for deal making for companies honored as Models of Excellence by InfoCommerce Group.

In the mega-deal category, we have 2006 honoree real estate data powerhouse Zillow, entering into a $3.5 billion deal to acquire arch-rival Trulia. This will of course put pressure on market leader Home.com, which operates the Realtor.com website. The whole real estate vertical has been one to watch from a data perspective. Zillow was not only an early innovator in the area of map-based user interfaces, it also blew more than a few minds by not only aggregating property data on almost every home in the country, but creating a home price estimate for every home as well. If this merger goes through, expect even more extreme innovation as these two giants battle it out for audience and advertising.

In the smaller (but hardly small) category, we have the $175 million acquisition of 2009 Model of Excellence honoree Bizo by 2004 Model of Excellence honoree LinkedIn. From a strategic standpoint, I’d rate this acquisition as nothing short of brilliant. At a high level, you are putting together “who” (the LinkedIn database, with “where,” (the Bizo B2B ad network). The potential opportunities are endless.

And while we’re in the world of high finance, a shout-out to 2010 Model of Excellence honoree SmartZip also seem in order, as they’ve just closed on a new $12 million financing round.

Where do these and other Models of Excellence companies meet each year to get their deals on? InfoCommerce Group’s DataContent gathering, now part of an even bigger show, the Business Information & Media Summit. See you in Miami!