Carrying Capacity

I created Multichannel Forensics as a way of simplifying some of the more technical aspects in biological and ecological modeling.

Every so often, a gifted marketing individual applies the concepts of biological and ecological modeling to practical marketing issues.

In this case, Andrew Chen shows how a topic called "carrying capacity" (i.e. the upper limit in growth of your business) and customer retention are applied to applications in Facebook.

If you like math, pay close attention to the equations used in his post.

The Marketing Digital Divide

I am coming around to the idea that a "Marketing Digital Divide" is happening all around us.

I like to read the point of view of many different marketing folks. This morning, this article arrived via Google Reader, from Andrew Chen. Andrew didn't gain his experience in the catalog industry. His marketing skills were honed in Seattle and Silicon Valley, during the internet era.

His article is titled '10 Obvious Strategies To Ruthlessly Acquire Users". Here are the ten strategies that he outlines.

1. Email/IM features for invites and content
2. Blog/MySpace widgets
3. Auto-invite for email, social networks, etc
4. Auto-embed for blog widgets
5. A/B tested signup pages
6. Smart adwords buying
7. Viral referrals
8. SEO/landing page generation
9. Push through RSS/Email, etc.
10. Reduce user "drag" through the entire funnel

Do the phrases "Instant Messaging", "Widgets", "MySpace", "Social Networks", "Auto-Embed", "Blogs" or "RSS" appear anywhere on your list of customer acquisition strategies, if you're a Multichannel Cataloger or Retailer?

Remember, Andrew calls these "obvious" strategies. Imagine what his list of less-than-obvious strategies looks like.

How many of my loyal readers, direct marketers with decades of experience, view these strategies as "obvious"?

This is the essence of the "Marketing Digital Divide". A generation of marketers are honing skills in a realm most Multichannel Catalogers or Retailers cannot envision. It seems to me that the "MDD", as I'll call it, is accelerating. And if you don't practice any of the items Andrew outlines, it becomes harder and harder to see them, to understand what is being done.

This might be a great time for Millard, or Mokrynski, or MeritDirect, to reassign job responsibilities to small number of individuals. These individuals could focus on Andrew's list. These folks could test Andrew's proposed strategies with progressive Multichannel Catalogers and Retailers willing to experiment. These individuals could spend time with "Web 2.0" folks, if you will, folks who are practicing these activities --- and then transfer the knowledge back to progressive Multichannel Catalogers and Retailers.

The Marketing Digital Divide isn't too big to cross, yet. With postal reform bearing down on catalogers, with Google dominating the online advertising space with their acquisition of DoubleClick, it's a great time for our list industry to build out solid Web 2.0 divisions that help transfer skills across the Marketing Digital Divide (MDD) to Multichannel Catalogers and Retailers.

What are your thoughts? Does the Marketing Digital Divide (MDD) exist? Are catalogers and retailers falling behind?