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Aquent partnered with Monster to uncover the key to "attracting, keeping and developing Web talent in an uncertain economy" and we presented our findings in an AMA webcast today (I've embedded the slides below for your viewing convenience).

It would seem that, while others in the creative class may be struggling, the web folk are feeling fairly confident. 72% of our respondents said they would rate their current position as moderately to highly secure. 52% feel that they would have a good or excellent chance of finding another web position were they to look (a belief that is semi-bolstered by the fact that 37% of our client respondents said they plan on hiring web talent in 2009). And 51% saw their compensation increase over the last twelve months.

This level of confidence amongst the web-enabled is understandable. From the standpoint of companies looking for web talent, it also makes these folks "available." Indeed, 43% percent of the people we asked said that they will actively seek another position within the next 12 months, while an additional 35% said they would make a move if the right opportunity presented itself. In other words, 78% of working web talent are "out there."

I'm not a math guy, but all signs point to this being a good time to be looking for web talent (and a good time to actually be a talented web professional). If you are in the hiring game, you might want to consider the following to lure the interactive moths to your particular flame: web folk are looking for stable positions, flexible schedules, and access to professional development. If you've got that on offer, then get busy offering!

As mentioned, the slides:

Aquent and the AMA engaged the Dihedral Group to conduct a couple surveys asking marketers about salaries and hiring trends, as I mentioned in this post. Well, the findings have been analyzed, reflected upon, and transformed into a convenient white paper, "The Pragmatic Recession," which you can also find here, along with a recording of our recent webcast on digital marketing management.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this document, but one thing that jumped out at me was the following: When hiring new marketers, managers are less concerned about depth experience and much more concerned about finding people whose skill-sets match their needs. While this makes sense on the face of it, I can't help but remind folks that when you hire somebody and it doesn't work out, it's rarely about their skills. On the contrary, it's all about fit.

As the scope of the current economic downturn expands and evolves, marketers are responding with pragmatism rather than panic. The pragmatic view, as revealed by research conducted by The Dihedral Group (TDG) on behalf of Aquent and the American Marketing Association, is driven by three factors: new technologies; the availability of highly-skilled contractors; and the understanding that organizations must plan for the recession's inevitable end.

Last spring, Aquent and the AMA enlisted TDG to conduct a survey asking marketers about salaries, hiring plans, and their outlook on the future. We turned the results of that survey into a marketing salaries calculator. Since the initial survey asked a lot about plans for 2008, we sponsored a follow up survey to find out what had happened in the intervening six months. Of course, we found that some plans had changed (only about a third of anticipated interactive marketing hires had been completed, for example), but we also found that, despite the severity of the current economic crisis, marketers seem to responding with a forward-looking level-headedness.

1. Guess what? Technology has changed marketing!

Everybody knows that email, the web, and the rise of social media have changed and are continuing to change the practice of marketing, so naturally these are changing the way marketers respond to a downturn in the economy. Specifically, whether companies are faring well or are struggling right now, online marketing plays a key role in their plans to weather the current storm.

They are, however, using the technology for different reasons and to different ends. On the one hand, those companies that experienced growth in 2008 are concentrating on using online capabilities to deepen customer insight, analyze their behavior, and continually improve the effectiveness of their digital marketing efforts. On the other hand, the strugglers are increasing their reliance on interactive marketing for increased efficiency and cost-savings.

Recent research revealed that, by and large, our clients do not read our marketing materials. Given that I spend a lot of time writing and editing the aforementioned materials, I was somewhat disheartened.

The good news was that people overwhelming tend to hear about us from someone else. Given that the drum I most frequently beat says that you get jobs primarily through people to people connections, I felt strangely validated.

If no one reads what you write, but through their actions prove it to be on the money, that's good, right?

A web design firm based in North Carolina, OnWired, has set up a site called Please Critique Me where, "designers can submit their work and have it reviewed (albeit publicly) by one of their industry peers." Seems like an interesting idea, especially from a recruiting standpoint.

Anyone used this yet?

What do you think?

Our CFO was kind enough to forward me an article from the Wall Street Journal, "Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures." Once I recovered from his passive-aggressive attack, I actually read the article and was relieved to discover that, for all its faults, at least this corporate blog doesn't commit the sins Forrester enumerated in the study on which the article was based.

Forrester faults most B2B corporate blogs with: lack of personality; infrequent posting; and the mere recycling of press releases. As far as the first two go, I think we're good. Personality is my only real asset, so if ain't coming through in this here blog then, gosh darn it, I'm doing something wrong.

On the frequency front, I've maintained a fairly steady "3 posts a week" pace, but I'm trying to bump that up to 5 per. And as far as press releases are concerned, if you want to read them, you can find them here on our corporate website.

Finally, Forrester points to the dearth of comments as an indicator of failure. To that I'll quote Van Morrison, who once sang, "And if you fail to hear from me/It only means I didn't call," or something like that. In other words, the only definite conclusion you can draw from an absence of comments is that no one commented. It doesn't mean they didn't read, think about, or even react to a particular post (or so I tell myself....)

In any event, I do, get comments. So back off, CFO-man!

Image Courtesy of salimfadhley.

On the "giving it away as a business strategy"-front, check out this WSJ article on Google offering a free tool to measure web hits. I quote, "Existing ad-serving systems don't currently provide detailed Web-audience data about the sites where they place ads. By giving away the new tool, Google could presumably attract more ad business."

You charge companies to serve their ads, but at the same time, you provide them with free intelligence about where those ads will best perform, which encourages them to use your ad-serving service. Etc.

I think they call that a "virtuous circle," though Google's competitors may call that a "death spiral."

A week ago I posted that I would be attending the MarketingProfs' B2B Forum here in Boston and, long story short, I did.

My überboss asked if I would put together some slides on what I learned there, but I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by writing about it here. After all, isn't Web 2.0 about sharing knowledge, insight, information, and, well, love?

So, in no particular order, "My Learnings."

1. Aquent Finds Marketers Job

Here's an anecdote: I was late to lunch on Tuesday and had to find an available seat for David Meerman Scott's presentation. Introducing myself to one of my tablemates, she said, "I know Aquent. I got my first job through you and a good friend and mentor of mine used to work for you guys." This was actually the second meal in which I heard words to that effect.

2. Aquent Finds Marketers Marketers

The other type of conversation I had, again fairly randomly, involved people who identified themselves as clients of Aquent. These were smart people doing innovative things at big companies.

3. Marketers Turn to Aquent as a Resource

I met people who said, "Oh, I was on your site looking for a new gig." I met others who said, "Oh, maybe you guys can help me find a new job." Another person wanted to know if job titles were a good vector of segmentation (if that makes sense).

Talent Spotlight

You launch a new product and it doesn't perform as you hoped. What do you do? Well, you could turn to someone like Irma Salinas for answers.

Irma is represented by Aquent's Connecticut office and is currently working on the "Marketing Insights" Team at a large non-alcoholic beverages company (as it turns out, she actually started her career at an international spirits company importing beer from Latin America). She got involved in doing product reviews when working for a research company where she was very involved in reviewing and reporting on the performance of non-carbonated beverages (water, teas, juices, etc.). "I started working in this area when it was really getting competitive. It was a very exciting time. The market for beverages was changing and I learned a lot."

Irma was frequently involved in reviewing the performance of new products. I asked her both why new products don't perform well, but also how companies go about setting sales goals for new products in the first place. "Of course, there is a very extensive process that large companies go through to develop and launch new products," Irma assures me, "and since they have tested it with consumers, etc., you soon discover that the reasons for poor performance are not usually to be found in the product itself."

"If you're not thinking segmentation, then you're not thinking," Ted Levitt of the Harvard Business School supposedly quipped. While every marketer would readily agree with him, getting segmentation right can be as challenging as it is necessary - and getting it wrong can be downright disastrous: Working with segmentation schema that are irrelevant to your business is a waste of time and money; working with too few or too broadly defined segments means missed opportunities; and working with too many or too narrowly defined segments means stretching your marketing resources to their breaking point.

Since there are so many options and variables involved in segmenting your audience, it is best to rely on analysts, either external or internal, who understand your business and who understand how to match your needs with the myriad segmenting approaches. To sketch out a useable framework for getting the most valuable results from your segmentation provider, I consulted Ben Ben-Baruch, a Senior Business Intelligence Consultant represented by Aquent who got his first contract assignment with General Motors in 1997 and has been there ever since.

"Whatever segmentation provider you use and whatever methodologies and data they employ," Ben says, "the key is ensuring that you can use the segmentation to meet your business goals. Finding a provider that thinks in terms of your business, presents the data with an emphasis on its proper use, and makes it easy to keep the data fresh, is critical not only to the success of your segmentation process, but to the success of your marketing efforts in general."