Insightful articles, opinion and commentary about mobile and web.

HotHouse has been named as a Leader in Australian Interactive Marketing Agencies in a July 2009 report by Forrester Research, Inc.: The Forrester Wave™: Australian Interactive Marketing Agencies, Q3 2009.

Forrester’s first-ever evaluation of Australian interactive marketing agencies looked at 36 criteria and revealed a market that is split between its roots in technology and its emerging focus on marketing strategy. Agencies were placed into one of four “waves”: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders or Risky Bets. read more

The recent release of the Forrester Wave on Australian Interactive Marketing Agencies has stirred up howls of protest.

Whether the methodology was sound is not my call and I have not written this article to discuss the merits or otherwise of the report, apart from saying I’m really pleased and proud of how Hothouse fared in the report. read more

There is an enormous amount of debate about how ‘value’ is defined and measured on web projects, particularly ROI on content. This thorny issue is still not resolved, so I’m going to point you toward some places where robust debate is going on, and you can make up your own mind.

Online Metrics Insider: This is a subsite of the MediaPost portal that deals with all angles of the web measurement and analytics debate, including content. Recent article titles include “It takes a village to measure social applications,” “Does content matter?” and “Does online metrics need a stimulus package?”

Web Analytics Demystified blog: Eric Petersen has written one of the seminal works on using web analytics in business. His associated blog contains interviews, comments and news of interest in this area.

Real Time Content blog:  This blog is dedicated to personalisation within online video advertising. This link is a compilation of all their articles about measurement of online video content.

American Marketing Association: Summary of a presentation by Jim Sterne, chairman of the Web Analytics Association and author of Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success, on how defining the right metrics leads to online success.

If you have any other sites you want to nominate, please add them below in the comments.

Joe Pulizzi, mentioned in Simon’s previous post on online content, has an excellent blog on online content marketing. Here are some of his examples of corporates who are getting it right when it comes to online content:

MasterCard Small Business: Billed as “Solutions for companies with revenue less than$10 million”, this site is very heavily branded and oriented toward doing business with MasterCard, although it also contains a number of useful articles about running a small business. M/C reports that 50% of new small business signups come directly from those informational articles.

Lego Brickmaster Club: Joe Pulizzi has produced a very detailed analysis of this customer loyalty program on his blog, speaking with first-hand experience as the father of a six-year-old Lego fan! Regarding Lego’s online content marketing, Joe says that a site for ‘power builders’, plenty of user-generated content, user case studies and user discussion forums integrate well with offline collateral such as Brickmaster magazine to keep customers excited about Lego.

Proctor & Gamble’s Beinggirl.com: Produced by P&G’s Tampax tampon brand, this site mixes product information with, well, girl stuff. Joe Pulizzi writes: “P&G is very transparent on the site. Any person can tell that the site sponsor is Tampax. They also have a few product sections, one of which is free samples. But the majority of the site focuses on content for girls - music, discussion, video…it’s all here. And frankly, some of the discussion makes me thankful that I have two boys and no girls.” Research conducted by Forrester for P&G found that Beinggirl.com is four times as effective as a similarly-priced program using traditional media. That makes it worth closer study.