Bob Bly vs. Robert Scoble: Old School Ideas vs. Newbie Technology

Bly's old-school thoughts on Facebook and Social Media and Direct Mail vs. E-Mail. Scoble's response.

Let's transition some of that discussion into the context of running a multichannel brand. Who's up for a test?

Who would be willing to execute this test within the context of their own brand?

• Customer group #1 is marketed to via direct mail and catalogs.
  
• Customer group #2 is marketed to via e-mail.
• Customer group #3 is marketed to via direct mail and catalogs and e-mail.
  
• Customer group #4 receives no direct mail, catalogs, or e-mail. They are simply left to the seductive wiles of social media.

Place your bets, folks ... which group drives the most sales and the most profit?

Social Media folks ... would you be willing to stand behind customer group #4? Or do you need the help of direct mail, catalogs, and e-mail (and paid search and portal advertising and affiliate advertising and shopping comparison sites) to succeed?

Your thoughts?

A 15 Year Old Analyst Running Circles Around The Rest Of Us

Those of us in the Database Marketing field are on the verge of losing our deathgrip on customer information.

As an example, take the blog Yuvisense, hosted by Yuvi, a fifteen year old in India. Recently, Yuvi decided to analyze information about uber-blogger Robert Scoble's blog. This link is the second of his posts about Scoble's blog.

Two topics come to mind.

First, who are you going to hire, the twenty-six year old who mails you a resume, touting the three years of experience at a great company, or Yuvi, the person who had the initiative at age fifteen to unabashedly share his analytical insights about a uber-blogger with the entire world, illustrating a clarity of presentation that most forty year olds cannot aspire to?

Second, pretend you are the Vice President of Database Marketing at a company like Talbots, J. Jill, Williams Sonoma, J.C. Penney, J. Crew, or any other company that starts with a J. In time, which option makes more sense?

Option #1 = Hire bright analytical minds, competing against companies like Google or Yahoo! on the basis of salary, benefits, stock options and prestige.

Option #2 = Farm out Database Marketing to Abacus or any number of competitors.

Option #3 = Make your analyses available to a throng of eager analytical bloggers, offering prize money to the individual who develops an acceptable answer, and a stipend to other individuals who invest time in the solution.

In time, I can see a world where folks like Yuvi access corporate datasets with anonymous information, creating brilliant insights and analyses that cannot possibly be matched by in-house talent. And what an interesting opportunity this presents for both businesses and individuals.

I subscribed to Yuvi's RSS feed. Let's see where Yuvi, and thousands of other bright, enterprising analytical minds take the field of Database Marketing.