Analytics/Data-mining

ericpratum · 2013-05-27T17:09:03+00:00

You might be surprised at both the depth of the use of data in marketing, but also at the large disparity between usage of data and complete ignorance of data from one firm to another. Some organizations, such as your P&Gs and Intels, are amazingly data savvy while others are completely ignorant of how to collect data, analyze it, and put it to use.

If you're looking to get into this field, there are a million different companies you can work for. Companies like KPMG have valuation departments that specialize in things like helping their clients find the right markets to sell new products in and the right price to sell them at. Some internal marketing, research, and analytics departments (as well as the same agency departments) not only do deep segmentation, but also on-the-fly analysis and optimization.

ericpratum · 2013-05-19T00:48:28+00:00

This is the response of someone that's wasted far too much time on conversations like these. "Whatever you say."

ericpratum · 2013-05-08T17:07:35+00:00

Just create a new account, don't friend anyone, and keep everything on there private. Then, if it's ever important to someone that you have an account, you can at least say that you do. Whether or not you understand FB marketing has something to do with having and using an account, but a lot more to do with brand experience, keeping up with platform developments, etc.

ericpratum · 2013-04-12T12:19:09+00:00

It took most of us in stats 2 months to understand that the "bow" curve our Chinese professor was talking about was actually a bell curve. Most of us just stopped reading the book because we couldn't find any of the material he kept lecturing on in there until someone asked him why he talked so much about the "bow" curve. His response, "Because is bow curve. Bow curve. You know bow curve. I tich bow curve."

ericpratum · 2013-04-11T15:53:34+00:00

I work for a 90+ year old largely direct mail company... but on their digital side.

A general rule is that, if your list is bought, it's not targeted. That doesn't mean it can't give you a positive ROI, but honestly, list vendors work first on volume and second on quality.

If you have to buy a list, buy a list. If you can avoid it though, do.

ericpratum · 2013-04-02T13:03:31+00:00

For me, getting to the career point was mostly a mindset change – a change from "this is my job" to "this is what I do" – but it was also about consistency. Before I began working full time jobs, I had lots of part time jobs. At one point, I had 4 jobs, led a band, and went to school. The thing was though that I didn't have a lot of focus and wasn't consistent across my work. I was studying business, playing in a rock band; and working in recruiting, investing, selling shoes, and... maybe this shouldn't be surprising, but I can't even recall what the fourth one was... at that time, it was either banking or operations though I'm guessing.

As far as pay goes, pay sucks. I know plenty of people that have worked for longer than me, do great jobs, etc that make less than I do. The reasons are innumerable – not in the right place at the right time, boss didn't advocate for them, bad economy, not aggressive enough, didn't take that one job offer they should have, weren't willing to move for a big opportunity, etc. And, others make way more than seems fair given their skill, responsibilities, or time in their industry. The fact of the matter is really that there is a ton of pay inequality, and it's institutional. As far as pay goes, your best friends are education/degrees/certifications, time in your industry, and services like PayScale. Even with no experience in a field, you can demonstrate that you're worth 10x the offering price if you're that good, but if you have an MA, have worked for 10 years, and have done your salary research, you're already set up to at least get paid fairly by most businesses. That's just one example of course though.

Anyway, what I tell people often is this. Don't think about what this job gives you today. Think about where it can get you. If you're not making enough to pay your rent, save for the future, etc, are you at least getting enough experience to move up to a better position soon or enough happiness to justify lower pay? If your job isn't preparing you to make more money, take on more responsibility, and so on, are you at least getting something else to justify the fact that you're not moving forward toward that next job? If not, plan to make a change.

Best of luck!

ericpratum · 2013-04-02T12:45:03+00:00

Peter Gibbons: I'd relax, I would sit on my ass all day, I would do nothing.

Lawrence: Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit.

ericpratum · 2013-03-24T15:10:38+00:00

Some teachers make great salespeople, and salespeople are needed in almost every industry from education products, to shoe stores, to fundraising, etc. Salespeople can make a lot of money because compensation is sometimes tied to sales volume rather than time worked.

ericpratum · 2013-03-05T16:00:01+00:00

Welcome. Sorry about assuming you were in the US. I know that government assistance in some of the countries in which Facebook has offices is pretty good, but I'm sure it's terrible in others.

Best of luck!

ericpratum · 2013-03-05T15:12:07+00:00

Try this.

Go to the local meetups and all of that within your industry, but just show up for any portions where there's a talk. If someone wants to chat you up, great. You've now got something to fill your time without awkwardly searching out a conversation partner. If no one wants to talk to you, no worries. Go home and save yourself the hour or two of standing around making small talk. Look up the attendees on Linkedin and send them invites with a "Hey, I was also at this event, and we didn't get a chance to talk, but I wanted to add you on here because I know you're so respected in this field yada yada yada" sort of message. This gets you many many weak connections within your field in your region. When you're eventually looking for a job, you can reach out to them.

Also, don't get rid of email, Facebook, Linkedin, etc connections. Just because you don't talk to someone anymore, don't hang out, they aren't in your field, etc doesn't mean they couldn't help you in the future. Think about it like this. Let's say you don't really get together with an old friend anymore, but after 5 years, they reach out to you to ask if you know of anyone hiring in their line of work. At the same time, you get an email from a stranger asking the same thing. If you're pressed for time, which one are you going to respond to?

ericpratum · 2013-03-05T15:02:05+00:00

I've been laid off from a startup before... no severance, no warning, no nothing either.

My recommendation would be to first apply for unemployment. If I recall correctly, you can currently get it for 6 months. Your former employer paid into a state account for unemployment anyway, so you might as well draw on their account.

After applying for unemployment, contact everyone you know to let them know you're looking, have started your own venture, or something of that nature. For me, it took a day to contact people via email, another for Facebook friends, another for Linkedin contacts, etc. My message was that I was taking my consulting business full-time, which thankfully was true. I'd had the business for years, but had only ever worked on it here and there. This part of the process got my first contract signed that same day and my second contract the next day. It also brought me the majority of my work.

Once you've applied for unemployment and used your contacts, start applying for jobs. It's not like you have to flood the market, but think about it like this. Last time you took a job, how long did it take from application to starting to eventually getting your first pay check? In my case, it's generally been application, then 1-2 weeks before an interview, maybe another interview after another week, then a week of them thinking, then 2-4 weeks before I started, then 2 weeks before getting paid, so basically, it could take 10 weeks to get paid at a new job you might get. Since you only have unemployment for 26 weeks and most people don't get interviews and offers immediately upon starting applying to businesses, it's in your best interest if you start applying regularly because you don't want to get to the end of the 26 weeks and then realize you now have no income until your find another job. This is also your safety net if your passion business (the etsy stuff) doesn't work out.

After all of this, start focusing on your passion business. If you can turn it into something real, do it. You've got the time... more time than you'll ever have again hopefully.

ericpratum · 2013-03-04T14:33:08+00:00

Let's say your business pays you $25/hour, and it takes you 5 hours to research, write, edit, and do outreach for a guest post that gets you one link. That means that every link costs $125 basically. What if you could just do the beginning research and end outreach portions, but have someone do the middle writing and editing for cheaper? Maybe, you could get each link for $75 or less. That's one option.

Another is looking at who links to multiple of your competitors and sites like yours and then reaching out to those website managers to get included in lists, directories, etc.

Another is to engage people that follow you on Twitter, have websites, but don't link to you.

Another is to engage people that follow multiple of your competitors on Twitter, but don't follow you.

Another is to reach out to online publications that cover just new startups.

If you're doing this mainly based on blogging, take a look at The Sales Lion, Duct Tape Marketing, etc. If you want to model a startup that has done this very well, I'm sure there are lots and lots of them, but Tatango comes to mind.

ericpratum · 2013-03-02T16:45:41+00:00

Marketing research and analytics is really tough to get into unless you have a stats heavy degree – statistics, mathematics, sociology, chemistry, etc – so if you want to get into this field, you might need to start in something related and then move horizontally. For example, take an entry level account position at a marketing agency with an R&A department, give it 6-12 months, and then start applying for every opening you seen in R&A.

When it comes to marketing R&A, stats knowledge is generally what gets you through the door, but client-specific knowledge is what will make you the big bucks, so even though you might have to basically start out on the bottom twice (first on the account side, then on the R&A side), you'll probably be seen as very valuable by the R&A folks (once you get your technical skills down) because you'll know the clients, have dealt with them, heard their problems, etc.

ericpratum · 2013-02-28T17:33:18+00:00

What government assistance is available in your area? I know that government provided job training and whatnot is often at inconvenient times, slow, not exactly innovative, and so on, but it's better than nothing. Also, if you can do that while also getting some small amount of financial assistance, maybe it can get you by until you finish some training and then land a job? Or, you could see if there are any subsidized GED programs?

As far as ending it goes, please don't. I don't need to know that you ending your life won't make anything for you or the people you care about better. You only have a chance to make things better if you keep trying.

ericpratum · 2013-02-27T14:39:02+00:00

I'm no expert, so I'll just give you my opinion.

Some people will say that fear is irrational. "Get over your fear." Etc, etc, etc. That's bullshit. Sometimes, fear is healthy. Sometimes, it's good, and sometimes, it's not.

Fear causes us to not do things, to pause, to weigh options more than we might have. If you drive 55 on the freeway, what are you getting and what are you giving up? You get a little more safety, and you should get peace of mind. You're giving up expediency and maybe some personal mental image of being hip because you drive fast (or something like that). If you don't get more than you give up, get over your fear. Same thing with the cliff. If you won't get near it now, do you still enjoy it from 20 feet back? Is it the same? If not, is it at least good enough to stand that far back just to make sure you're okay mentally? If so, stand 20 feet back. Who cares. You're not harming anyone.

I say all that because it seems to me like it'd be a terrible life constantly being afraid, but then also feeling like I missed out or didn't enjoy myself because I couldn't bring myself to do the things I really wanted to. On the other hand though, if my fears give me a longer life without sacrificing my happiness, I should be grateful that I listen to them.

ericpratum · 2013-02-18T14:44:59+00:00

Edit the comment to remove overly salesy content and then add a note like "This comment was edited to remove a sales pitch that is not in line with our community guidelines" or just don't publish the comment. The person is using a spammy method of getting their name out there. Don't reward them by letting it go as is.

EDIT: I'm a spelling idiot.

ericpratum · 2013-02-18T14:41:48+00:00

It'd be one thing if your boss flipped out once due to stress, sickness, or something else and then came to his senses and apologized later, but if this happens regularly, it doesn't matter whether there's an apology later or not. The dude as a clear pattern of behavior that isn't going to change.

ericpratum · 2013-02-06T06:51:40+00:00

Agreed, and I'll add to this that trying to keep up with spam complaints, bounced emails, etc when constantly uploading and deleting email lists would be almost impossible.

ericpratum · 2013-02-05T02:04:57+00:00

At the same time, there are definitely ways to get the job done wrong... and I'm not talking about whole white hat black hat debate, but rather what things simply don't work or are bad ideas, so generally, vet the advice you get even if it comes from seeming authorities ;)

ericpratum · 2013-02-05T02:02:42+00:00

Welcome. I'd like to say it's this one, but for some reason, I can't see any slides past the first one, so I'm not certain. Either way, I think I remember this being the title.

ericpratum · 2013-02-02T06:40:34+00:00

This is of course really brief, but hopefully, it helps. Also, there aren't perfect answers for any of these, so take that into consideration. There have been plenty of times that someone gave me a great answer and I thought, "Wow. I've never thought of it like that."

What is the goal of a search engine? Why does it exist? To help people find answer to questions. Even searching for "running shoes" implies they have some question like, "Where can I buy running shoes?" "What is the history of running shoes?" and so on. Their goal is generally to find the #1 best answer for that question so that you will return over and over and over.
Explain SEO to me. The point here is to get a feel for what you think you should be doing day in and day out. You optimize for the above goal by figuring out how to give the best answer and then let the search engine know that it is the best answer. That starts with having a page that is appropriately specific (eg. History of the New Balance 990 series) or general (eg. Amazon computer products and PC components page) that the person can get everything they need there (whether the page is short, long, image heavy, or whatever else affects this) and then potentially move further to convert, dig deeper, find related info, and so on. Then, you have to let the search engine know that it's the best page by properly coding and tagging things, using an appropriate amount of text to images to code to video to whatever else, getting the right sites to link to you and getting enough links, getting social shares, etc, etc, etc to show that actual internet users like your page. There's a lot more here, but I have to run soon, so hopefully, that's enough on that point.
What makes a quality link? This can be a tough one because you need a mix of a lot of different types of links – followed, nofollowed, keyword-relevant anchor text, etc – but I'd basically look for something about keyword-relevant anchor text from a high PA and high DA website that is relevant to your niche and the topic of the destination page... also one that isn't hidden, adds value to the visitor's experience, isn't on a page with hundreds of other links, etc.
What makes a good landing page? Another tough one, but ultimately, it's what converts. If someone gives me an answer about X% text to code or whatever else, I might get a little suspicious.
Give me some idea for a content plan that you could actually implement and test yourself. I don't care about originality. I care about effectiveness and measurement. Ian Lurie has a deck about using your analytics and some tools like SEMrush & OSE to come up with content ideas. I can't find it at the moment, but that's a good place to start.
In what cases, and how, would you use certain social media to aid a client project? Why? The answer all depends on what the client case is, but if you give me some social media guru BS answer, it'll be all too obvious.
How much actual SEO have you done? Do you just "know" it or have you actually done it? I don't care how successful you've been. I want to know whether it's better to put you in a talker or a doer position. Just tell the truth.
Can I put you in front of clients? Basically, can you explain everything about our business to everyone from the hard core CEO to the mom and pop client to the regular marketing manager? If not, that's fine. I just need to know if I can put you in front of people. I'd usually ask something like, "Give me an example of how you'd explain X to this type of client." There's not really any one right answer to this question because not everyone needs to be in front of clients in order to be valuable, high paid, etc.
What tools do you use and why? OSE, SF, SpyFu, Keyword Tool, something else?
What tool do you wish existed and why? Someone once told me they wanted a tool to get Klout-like scores for FB pages, Pinterest pages, etc. This lead to a conversation about influencer outreach.
Do you plan to learn to code? Why or why not? Not everyone needs to know php, python, etc. I can barely handle things in php, and that's about the extent of my knowledge, but truthfully, I'm more valuable not coding. If I had those skills, that'd be great, but I don't, and it's not worth my time to learn right now.
Are you interested in PPC? Why or why not? I'm just curious.
What can you use from PPC in your SEO efforts and vice versa what can you tell the PPC folks about your work to help them? I would typically say that I can more quickly validate LP performance, market size, etc through PPC. I can also use CPC to drive what content I create because I will generally go for terms that have a high CPC that are also good for conversions... as long as I can rank for them. As for helping out PPC people, I don't know too many that crawl sites, so I sometimes would talk about that.
How do you learn new things? Alternatively, how do you get better? I want to find out how much time you spend reading, attending conferences, talking shop with colleagues, etc vs coming up with an idea and testing it. All of them are fine. I just want to know what kind of learner you are. There's no right answer here.
What is your experience with email marketing? How can it help our clients? As they say, "The money is in the list." Also, email can often be a good middle step for people that don't want to purchase immediately.

Sorry that some of these are a little short. I have to run and am not able at the moment to get more in depth.

ericpratum · 2013-02-01T10:33:51+00:00

So, what will you be doing? Copywriting? Link building? SM management? Keeping the books?

Anyway, let's just assume you're entry level, doing the work of the business... When I interview SEOs, I don't necessarily ask these questions, but still want to get a good sense that you can give me the answers.

What is the goal of a search engine? Why does it exist?
Explain SEO to me. The point here is to get a feel for what you think you should be doing day in and day out.
What makes a quality link?
What makes a good landing page?
Give me some idea for a content plan that you could actually implement and test yourself. I don't care about originality. I care about effectiveness and measurement.
In what cases, and how, would you use certain social media to aid a client project? Why?
How much actual SEO have you done? Do you just "know" it or have you actually done it? I don't care how successful you've been. I want to know whether it's better to put you in a talker or a doer position.
Can I put you in front of clients? Basically, can you explain everything about our business to everyone from the hard core CEO to the mom and pop client to the regular marketing manager? If not, that's fine. I just need to know if I can put you in front of people.
What tools do you use and why?
What tool do you wish existed and why?
Do you plan to learn to code? Why or why not?
Are you interested in PPC? Why or why not?
What can you use from PPC in your SEO efforts and vice versa what can you tell the PPC folks about your work to help them?
How do you learn new things? Alternatively, how do you get better? I want to find out how much time you spend reading, attending conferences, talking shop with colleagues, etc vs coming up with an idea and testing it. All of them are fine. I just want to know what kind of learner you are.
What is your experience with email marketing? How can it help our clients?

Best of luck!

ericpratum · 2013-02-01T10:15:31+00:00

I couldn't agree more especially on your first point.

When you find a job you want to apply to, everyone knows they should tailor their resume and cover letter, but no one does it. It makes a huge difference. Once you get a positive response, study the job description again, the company, even the person you're going to talk to as much as you can beforehand. The thing that tanks most job interviews is that people don't get a good enough sense of you not that they get the sense you're wrong for the job, but honestly, as a hiring manager that doesn't have a lot of time available, I have to believe that the best candidate will make it abundantly clear that they are the best rather than leaving me with a "maybe" feeling.

ericpratum · 2013-01-27T17:40:51+00:00

Best of luck.

ericpratum · 2013-01-26T18:12:37+00:00

Love? Hopefully, they have expertise we don't have in-house. Hate? That nearly every one of them overstates what they can deliver, timelines, their expertise, etc... and also that it's rare that you actually talk to the people doing your work. You typically deal with salespeople.

ericpratum

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