Last year's purchase of YouTube by Google Inc., certainly set in cement, without a doubt, how much clout a social networking site has.
Social networking web sites, come in different themes, personal and/or specifically for finding friends or sharing interesting things such as pictures, music, videos, etc.
i.e. Yahoo! 360, MySpace, Orkut, FriendWise, FriendFinder, Gofish, YouTube and so on.
Not to mention you can pretty much find one for any niche you are into... From books, cats, dogs to even turning yourself into a 3D image at Zwinky. :)
Then there are also many social networks popping up specifically geared toward Business and Online Marketing.
i.e. AdlandPro's Adlander, Ryze, AP Sense, to name a few. And even some of the sites listed above are providing a way for many to promote their business in a way that really gets noticed. Videos for example turned into full blown commercial type presentations. Many that are made interesting enough they capture your attention until the end.
With their recent rise in popularity there is a good chance that you already belong to one or more online social networking communities.
However, it is one thing to be a community member and another to actually participate in that community.
The first step of learning how to use the full potential of social networking, is to familiarize yourself with the features offered by each community or communities that you belong to. Then use those features to get the word out about you and your business.
This can only be done by closely examining the web site. You must take the time to figure out how each type of community and its particular features can benefit you and those you invite to join you in that community.
When learning about each social networking community that you belong to, it is also very important that you clearly read and understand the terms of use agreement. This agreement will outline the rules and restrictions for what you can and cannot do within that community. These rules and restrictions may limit the content that you can have on your community site, as well as your pictures, videos, and other media.
Many social networking web sites, will terminate your membership if you are found violating these agreements. By reading and abiding by all of the rules and restrictions of the social networking web site you belong to, you should be able to ensure that you can continue to use and enjoy the site.
By fully examining the social network you belong to you will also then know each social network's benefits, features, and services.
In addition to giving you your own profile page and allowing you to invite other Internet users into your network, there are a number of other things that you can do with social networking web sites geared towards business.
Many have created features that include areas to list special offers your business has going, or a special services you may provide, the ability to create business related discussion groups, and one of the newest ones even has a handy piece of software that you download on to your computer and are able to read and post bulletins directly to the desktop of other members using the software. Plus it lets you also add your favorite RSS feeds.
By researching each social networking web site, you should easily be able to familiarize yourself with the advantages and disadvantages of each feature or service provided. And, since most social networking web sites are free to use, there are no risks associated with giving the network a try.
So with the many benefits listed, I am sure you see by now , there are a number of different ways to use the full potential of social networking and even more reasons why to take the time to try to learn how to.
The decision is up to you as to whether or not you want to spend the time researching your social networks and everything they offer. But keep in mind, that not doing so can mean that you are missing out not only on all the fun these sites can offer but the huge potential they possibly hold for helping you with your business online.
Article Author by : Debbie Ducker
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Mobile Marketing v/s Internet Marketing
Mobile marketing will be bigger than online,
There is lot been said and written about mobile marketing in India. With more than 200 million (both CDMA and GSM) mobile subscribers as compared to 35 million internet users, this medium offers a wider audience base.
Though, in spite of such huge market size available, not many media planners are looking mobile as marketing option. Recently, ad spends on mobile stood at around Rs 8/- to 10/- crores.On the other hand,
Internet marketing is reach sky high in terms of marketing opportunities. Of late, internet advertising has seen a humongous growth in advertising, around Rs 200 crores is spend on internet. Internet being more of interactive medium, it’s become the first choose for the advertisers to glue in their target audience and communicate the message to them effectively.
Advantages in both mediums
Mobile Marketing
1) Wider audience
2) Better in getting responses from customers
3) SMS based campaigns and recently used WAP based campaigns
4) Good for promotions and discount coupons
5) Can be targeted
Internet Advertising
1) Interactive and active audience.
2) More effective for carpet bombing
3) Viral based campaigns and now having more interactive based campaigns
4) Can be used for branding and click to call promotions
5) For mass communications
Similarity in both mediums
• The mediums are very effective in engaging the target audiences for longer time frame.
• Target based communications are still possible.
• The customers are readily interested in knowing and understanding the communication
There is lot been said and written about mobile marketing in India. With more than 200 million (both CDMA and GSM) mobile subscribers as compared to 35 million internet users, this medium offers a wider audience base.
Though, in spite of such huge market size available, not many media planners are looking mobile as marketing option. Recently, ad spends on mobile stood at around Rs 8/- to 10/- crores.On the other hand,
Internet marketing is reach sky high in terms of marketing opportunities. Of late, internet advertising has seen a humongous growth in advertising, around Rs 200 crores is spend on internet. Internet being more of interactive medium, it’s become the first choose for the advertisers to glue in their target audience and communicate the message to them effectively.
Advantages in both mediums
Mobile Marketing
1) Wider audience
2) Better in getting responses from customers
3) SMS based campaigns and recently used WAP based campaigns
4) Good for promotions and discount coupons
5) Can be targeted
Internet Advertising
1) Interactive and active audience.
2) More effective for carpet bombing
3) Viral based campaigns and now having more interactive based campaigns
4) Can be used for branding and click to call promotions
5) For mass communications
Similarity in both mediums
• The mediums are very effective in engaging the target audiences for longer time frame.
• Target based communications are still possible.
• The customers are readily interested in knowing and understanding the communication
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The truth about Ad Network Transparency
Clearing up misconceptions
For all that has been written and said about ad network transparency, it's surprising how often the misconception still arises that networks do not provide transparency. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, at least with some networks.
Perhaps the confusion is because transparency takes different forms. To illustrate the degrees of transparency offered by networks, and why these different tiers are necessary, it's helpful to review the role of networks and how they deliver their inventory.
Ad networks were built to deliver performance and scale, not to sell individual sites. And while it's beneficial that most networks have adapted to advertisers' need for transparency, they were initially created to deliver audiences in ways that would help marketers reach a specific performance objective.
Most networks can provide an extremely high degree of transparency; however, as a general rule, more transparency comes at a higher cost. To better understand where the trade-offs related to transparency begin and end, look at how a network structures its relationships with publishers and the value proposition this creates.
Exclusive representation
Networks that offer exclusive site representation provide marketers with unique sponsorships, site takeovers and other custom opportunities on sites that are a match for their desired brand association or target audience. This offers the highest degree of transparency, but typically at higher rates and reduced reach.
From a publisher's perspective, exclusive representation is a great way to leverage the national sales force offered by a network when it may have a small sales team -- or no sales, ad operations or technology organization at all. The site and its network partner are highly motivated to be as transparent as possible, letting well-matched advertisers know they will bend over backward to create programs to maximize how an advertiser is featured on the site.
Key take-aways:
• Exclusive representation provides highly custom opportunities, but with limited reach and at a higher cost.
• The very nature of exclusive representation requires transparency between publisher, the network representing them and the advertiser.
Exclusive third-party
Another level of transparency is created when a network serves as the exclusive third-party sales representative for a site's inventory. In this instance, a site may sell some portion of its inventory directly but will rely heavily on one network to fill the remaining inventory at as high a rate as possible. To the extent that a site will allow its name to be used transparently, it can earn more because the sales organization can disclose the name to advertisers who would place a value on having that site be part of the plan.
On the other hand, because the site maintains its own sales staff, it must work out how to manage any potential channel conflict with the network that is selling alongside them. This may include agreeing on a protected account list, territory restrictions or prohibiting endemic advertisers. Regardless, whether or not to disclose a third-party exclusive relationship is up to the publisher, but it is typically in the best interest of the publisher to allow their network partner to name the site.
Key take-away:
• When a network serves as the exclusive third-party representative of a site, it is to the advantage of the publisher to allow transparency so the unique opportunities on the site can be presented to advertisers
Disclosed
Some sites will give permission for a network to name them as part of a site list or on a custom media plan, but not to the point where the network will report out specific statistics such as impressions, clicks or actions. For advertisers that require full transparency from a network, this form of representation provides the site name and aggregate statistics for the campaign with individual site metrics by anonymous site identification. In all cases, the advertiser is guaranteed to not run outside a list of approved sites.
This category of representation has become quite popular recently, as it seems to be an acceptable win-win for both advertisers and publishers in working with a network. Advertisers get to run on a transparent, approved list of sites, and publishers maintain their brand and rate integrity. If being on a specific site or having specific site metrics by site name is more important than overall performance and scale, advertisers should work directly with the site. The value proposition for networks is to deliver both brand and direct response performance with maximum scale.
Key take-away:
• Disclosed sites can be named on a site list but actual campaign statistics for individual sites are typically reported anonymously.
• Advertisers are assured of not running outside the list of disclosed sites, while publishers are able to maintain brand and rate integrity.
Blind
A blind site is one that a network does not have permission to name, mostly because the site has made a decision that its rate card and/or brand equity would be compromised by its disclosure as part of a network. In this instance, the quality of the site may be quite high, as most of its inventory is likely sold directly, by an internal sales team. The site accepts that it will receive a lower rate from the network by not being disclosed, but has made the strategic decision to sell its available inventory at a lower rate rather than not selling it all.
Caveat emptor! The only other reason an individual site would not be disclosed as part of a network is due to poor quality inventory maintained by the network. Quality of content is subjective, but even if a site contains user-generated content or other content that would be objectionable to some, it should be categorized as such by a network in ways that allow advertisers to make their own decision as to whether they care to run within that inventory.
Key take-away:
• In cases where a reputable network cannot disclose the name of a site, it is typically because the site has its own sales force and sells a majority of their inventory directly to similar advertisers.
• Advertisers should select a network partner with a spotless reputation when sites cannot be named to ensure that these sites will still meet a strict quality standard.
Conclusion
In this day and age of online advertising, and understanding what it takes to earn the trust and budget of an advertiser, it is surprising that some networks continue to push the envelope on unapproved or inappropriate content. Advertisers should choose their network partners cautiously and ensure they have a strong track record of operating with integrity.
Underscoring the entire transparency debate is the issue of credibility, trust and selecting an ad network partner you know will always make the right decision for your brand, even in your absence. A credible partner will give you as much transparency as you require, whether that means their entire site list or a custom media plan of named sites.
Author of this article: Matthew Boyd is senior vice president at ValueClick Media.
For all that has been written and said about ad network transparency, it's surprising how often the misconception still arises that networks do not provide transparency. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, at least with some networks.
Perhaps the confusion is because transparency takes different forms. To illustrate the degrees of transparency offered by networks, and why these different tiers are necessary, it's helpful to review the role of networks and how they deliver their inventory.
Ad networks were built to deliver performance and scale, not to sell individual sites. And while it's beneficial that most networks have adapted to advertisers' need for transparency, they were initially created to deliver audiences in ways that would help marketers reach a specific performance objective.
Most networks can provide an extremely high degree of transparency; however, as a general rule, more transparency comes at a higher cost. To better understand where the trade-offs related to transparency begin and end, look at how a network structures its relationships with publishers and the value proposition this creates.
Exclusive representation
Networks that offer exclusive site representation provide marketers with unique sponsorships, site takeovers and other custom opportunities on sites that are a match for their desired brand association or target audience. This offers the highest degree of transparency, but typically at higher rates and reduced reach.
From a publisher's perspective, exclusive representation is a great way to leverage the national sales force offered by a network when it may have a small sales team -- or no sales, ad operations or technology organization at all. The site and its network partner are highly motivated to be as transparent as possible, letting well-matched advertisers know they will bend over backward to create programs to maximize how an advertiser is featured on the site.
Key take-aways:
• Exclusive representation provides highly custom opportunities, but with limited reach and at a higher cost.
• The very nature of exclusive representation requires transparency between publisher, the network representing them and the advertiser.
Exclusive third-party
Another level of transparency is created when a network serves as the exclusive third-party sales representative for a site's inventory. In this instance, a site may sell some portion of its inventory directly but will rely heavily on one network to fill the remaining inventory at as high a rate as possible. To the extent that a site will allow its name to be used transparently, it can earn more because the sales organization can disclose the name to advertisers who would place a value on having that site be part of the plan.
On the other hand, because the site maintains its own sales staff, it must work out how to manage any potential channel conflict with the network that is selling alongside them. This may include agreeing on a protected account list, territory restrictions or prohibiting endemic advertisers. Regardless, whether or not to disclose a third-party exclusive relationship is up to the publisher, but it is typically in the best interest of the publisher to allow their network partner to name the site.
Key take-away:
• When a network serves as the exclusive third-party representative of a site, it is to the advantage of the publisher to allow transparency so the unique opportunities on the site can be presented to advertisers
Disclosed
Some sites will give permission for a network to name them as part of a site list or on a custom media plan, but not to the point where the network will report out specific statistics such as impressions, clicks or actions. For advertisers that require full transparency from a network, this form of representation provides the site name and aggregate statistics for the campaign with individual site metrics by anonymous site identification. In all cases, the advertiser is guaranteed to not run outside a list of approved sites.
This category of representation has become quite popular recently, as it seems to be an acceptable win-win for both advertisers and publishers in working with a network. Advertisers get to run on a transparent, approved list of sites, and publishers maintain their brand and rate integrity. If being on a specific site or having specific site metrics by site name is more important than overall performance and scale, advertisers should work directly with the site. The value proposition for networks is to deliver both brand and direct response performance with maximum scale.
Key take-away:
• Disclosed sites can be named on a site list but actual campaign statistics for individual sites are typically reported anonymously.
• Advertisers are assured of not running outside the list of disclosed sites, while publishers are able to maintain brand and rate integrity.
Blind
A blind site is one that a network does not have permission to name, mostly because the site has made a decision that its rate card and/or brand equity would be compromised by its disclosure as part of a network. In this instance, the quality of the site may be quite high, as most of its inventory is likely sold directly, by an internal sales team. The site accepts that it will receive a lower rate from the network by not being disclosed, but has made the strategic decision to sell its available inventory at a lower rate rather than not selling it all.
Caveat emptor! The only other reason an individual site would not be disclosed as part of a network is due to poor quality inventory maintained by the network. Quality of content is subjective, but even if a site contains user-generated content or other content that would be objectionable to some, it should be categorized as such by a network in ways that allow advertisers to make their own decision as to whether they care to run within that inventory.
Key take-away:
• In cases where a reputable network cannot disclose the name of a site, it is typically because the site has its own sales force and sells a majority of their inventory directly to similar advertisers.
• Advertisers should select a network partner with a spotless reputation when sites cannot be named to ensure that these sites will still meet a strict quality standard.
Conclusion
In this day and age of online advertising, and understanding what it takes to earn the trust and budget of an advertiser, it is surprising that some networks continue to push the envelope on unapproved or inappropriate content. Advertisers should choose their network partners cautiously and ensure they have a strong track record of operating with integrity.
Underscoring the entire transparency debate is the issue of credibility, trust and selecting an ad network partner you know will always make the right decision for your brand, even in your absence. A credible partner will give you as much transparency as you require, whether that means their entire site list or a custom media plan of named sites.
Author of this article: Matthew Boyd is senior vice president at ValueClick Media.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Is India waking up for Corporate Blogging?
Corporate blogging, India awakens !
Since the rise of Social Networks like Orkut in India everyone are looking at possible ways to leverage this phenomenon to gain benefit in one way or the other. It’s not only the networking bug has bitten but now they are trying how to use these networks for Social marketing.
SOCIAL MARKETING:
Though the marketing on social media platforms and other social networks earlier was not upto the mark, now it seems marketers are more interested in knowing the "right" way of social media marketing.
Brand marketers have started realizing the opportunity in communities by launching their own brand communities, like Sunsilkgangofgirls or whispers beingirl.co.in or ponds i-blushed.com. They now seem to be realise the value of engagement vs push/spam/banner advertising. And this engagement isn’t only related to Marketers launching brand sites it also moves on to sponsoring online spaces where its target audience is engaged and also being present on those platforms. For example xbhp.com a biker’s community which was started as an individual forum was sponsored by Castrol at an early stage. Besides for sponsored communities one also sees a great use of these social networks with respect to creating groups of employees and fans to promote ones brand.
SOCIAL RECRUITING:
Social Networking has started attracting the HR managers and recruiters who have had enough of sifting and sorting through millions of resumes. Social networking & business networking are fast becoming hunting grounds for recruits.Recently even techtribe which is techie social network launched job referrals for its users and is also giving an iphone as a freebie to attract more visitors.
According to me Blogs especially corporate blogs can be a powerful way of attracting like minded and knowledgeable talent that understands your business and can connect and participate in the conversation with you. But unfortunately very few Indian companies have exercised the blogging option to hire prospective employees.
Since the rise of Social Networks like Orkut in India everyone are looking at possible ways to leverage this phenomenon to gain benefit in one way or the other. It’s not only the networking bug has bitten but now they are trying how to use these networks for Social marketing.
SOCIAL MARKETING:
Though the marketing on social media platforms and other social networks earlier was not upto the mark, now it seems marketers are more interested in knowing the "right" way of social media marketing.
Brand marketers have started realizing the opportunity in communities by launching their own brand communities, like Sunsilkgangofgirls or whispers beingirl.co.in or ponds i-blushed.com. They now seem to be realise the value of engagement vs push/spam/banner advertising. And this engagement isn’t only related to Marketers launching brand sites it also moves on to sponsoring online spaces where its target audience is engaged and also being present on those platforms. For example xbhp.com a biker’s community which was started as an individual forum was sponsored by Castrol at an early stage. Besides for sponsored communities one also sees a great use of these social networks with respect to creating groups of employees and fans to promote ones brand.
SOCIAL RECRUITING:
Social Networking has started attracting the HR managers and recruiters who have had enough of sifting and sorting through millions of resumes. Social networking & business networking are fast becoming hunting grounds for recruits.Recently even techtribe which is techie social network launched job referrals for its users and is also giving an iphone as a freebie to attract more visitors.
According to me Blogs especially corporate blogs can be a powerful way of attracting like minded and knowledgeable talent that understands your business and can connect and participate in the conversation with you. But unfortunately very few Indian companies have exercised the blogging option to hire prospective employees.
Internet Marketing Trends
We see a number of changes in the way in which companies market their brands on the internet.
The top 10 internet marketing tips are:
1. Optimize your websites content:
First and foremost, get your website content right. Make sure it is easily read by both humans and search engines. An essential variable applied by Search Engines in the way in which they rank websites is based on the relevancy of the content that the search engine is indexing.
2. Create a content development strategy for your website:
In addition to optimizing the existing content on your website, it is essential that you develop a strategy to continuously increase your websites content on an ongoing basis. All new content should be written specifically with the web reader in mind and should also be optimized for the search engines.
3. Invest in a paid search (pay-per-click) campaign:
When you pay for traffic (visitors) that click on your advertisements that are being advertised on search engines, this is called pay-per-click or search engine advertising. Paid search allows you to quickly leverage search engine traffic by bidding for keywords that are related to the products or services that you promote and sell on your website. Paid search advertising is particularly beneficial to companies who are not yet well ranked on search engines through natural search.
4. Publicize your website through article marketing:
Article marketing is regarded by Internet marketing experts as one of the most effective promotional methods to publicise your website and to increase the number of back links (incoming links) to your website content. To ensure ongoing awareness, articles should be submitted to suitable article directories, content publishers, article announcement lists and content syndication (RSS feeds). Make sure to publish the content on your own website before submitting it to article directories and publishers. Make it easy for the reader to bookmark your content on social search engines by including a bookmark button at the end of each piece of content.
5. Develop a social media marketing strategy:
Studies show that by the end of 2007 more than 60% of top global companies will have had some form of social media marketing strategy in place. Corporates and small business owners should create a clear social media marketing strategy as part of an integrated communications and marketing strategy. Social Media has become an essential component of online marketing and search engines are adjusting their rankings to include search personalization. One of the effects of the social media revolution is an exponential increase in the amount of content online.
6. Create a Company Blog:
In the past, corporates have been focusing marketing and communications efforts on becoming faceless. This has changes significantly. The online consumer wants to engage with companies that have an online personality. More and more companies are starting to realise the significance of establishing a company personality and we are starting to see more Corporate Blogs coming alive. Business Blogging will continue to become more lucrative as more and more people look to new media such as Blogs and social websites for insight.
7. Experiment with video marketing:
There is tremendous power and revenue-generating potential in Video Marketing. With the rapid ongoing growth of YouTube's traffic in addition to the emergence of Internet Television websites, streaming video is dominating the international web and marketers are quickly scrambling to capitalize on this exciting channel. As companies seek to simplify video sharing, video marketing will become more interactive which could have huge implications for Affiliate marketing.
8. Engage your audiences with web widget marketing:
Widgets have made significant strides as an accepted marketing technique in recent months. Many new Blog oriented services are launching Widgets providing businesses with the opportunity quickly introduce their services and new products to audiences.
Web Widgets are small applets that live in HTML and provide miniature versions of a specific piece of content outside of the primary web site. Web Widget Marketing is not only an exciting new marketing technique; it is fast becoming one of the leading brand-building marketing strategies for businesses advertising online.
9. Discover the benefits of mobile media marketing:
Mobile media marketing has continued to grow at a meteoric pace as many web companies recognise the huge potential in mobile marketing. As new technologies emerge and standard websites are converted to ones can easily be accessed by mobile devices, companies will need to ensure that there websites are mobile-friendly. This leads the way for new and innovative opportunities to provide the consumer with improved brand and marketing experiences.
10. Create an effective email marketing strategy:
Introduce an effective Email communications strategy as part of your marketing strategy to grow your existing customer base and to expand your client base significantly through permission marketing and regular targeted communications. Engaging your customers with relevant, targeted information when, where, and how they want it is crucial to marketing success. By combining technological advances with tried-and-tested best practices, the future still looks bright for email marketers.
To conquer commercial combat, a significantly powerful Internet presence, supported by a brilliant E-Marketing Strategy, is paramount to ensuring that you remain competitive, increase revenue and magnetize your customers!
Article written and credits to:Gillian Meier
The top 10 internet marketing tips are:
1. Optimize your websites content:
First and foremost, get your website content right. Make sure it is easily read by both humans and search engines. An essential variable applied by Search Engines in the way in which they rank websites is based on the relevancy of the content that the search engine is indexing.
2. Create a content development strategy for your website:
In addition to optimizing the existing content on your website, it is essential that you develop a strategy to continuously increase your websites content on an ongoing basis. All new content should be written specifically with the web reader in mind and should also be optimized for the search engines.
3. Invest in a paid search (pay-per-click) campaign:
When you pay for traffic (visitors) that click on your advertisements that are being advertised on search engines, this is called pay-per-click or search engine advertising. Paid search allows you to quickly leverage search engine traffic by bidding for keywords that are related to the products or services that you promote and sell on your website. Paid search advertising is particularly beneficial to companies who are not yet well ranked on search engines through natural search.
4. Publicize your website through article marketing:
Article marketing is regarded by Internet marketing experts as one of the most effective promotional methods to publicise your website and to increase the number of back links (incoming links) to your website content. To ensure ongoing awareness, articles should be submitted to suitable article directories, content publishers, article announcement lists and content syndication (RSS feeds). Make sure to publish the content on your own website before submitting it to article directories and publishers. Make it easy for the reader to bookmark your content on social search engines by including a bookmark button at the end of each piece of content.
5. Develop a social media marketing strategy:
Studies show that by the end of 2007 more than 60% of top global companies will have had some form of social media marketing strategy in place. Corporates and small business owners should create a clear social media marketing strategy as part of an integrated communications and marketing strategy. Social Media has become an essential component of online marketing and search engines are adjusting their rankings to include search personalization. One of the effects of the social media revolution is an exponential increase in the amount of content online.
6. Create a Company Blog:
In the past, corporates have been focusing marketing and communications efforts on becoming faceless. This has changes significantly. The online consumer wants to engage with companies that have an online personality. More and more companies are starting to realise the significance of establishing a company personality and we are starting to see more Corporate Blogs coming alive. Business Blogging will continue to become more lucrative as more and more people look to new media such as Blogs and social websites for insight.
7. Experiment with video marketing:
There is tremendous power and revenue-generating potential in Video Marketing. With the rapid ongoing growth of YouTube's traffic in addition to the emergence of Internet Television websites, streaming video is dominating the international web and marketers are quickly scrambling to capitalize on this exciting channel. As companies seek to simplify video sharing, video marketing will become more interactive which could have huge implications for Affiliate marketing.
8. Engage your audiences with web widget marketing:
Widgets have made significant strides as an accepted marketing technique in recent months. Many new Blog oriented services are launching Widgets providing businesses with the opportunity quickly introduce their services and new products to audiences.
Web Widgets are small applets that live in HTML and provide miniature versions of a specific piece of content outside of the primary web site. Web Widget Marketing is not only an exciting new marketing technique; it is fast becoming one of the leading brand-building marketing strategies for businesses advertising online.
9. Discover the benefits of mobile media marketing:
Mobile media marketing has continued to grow at a meteoric pace as many web companies recognise the huge potential in mobile marketing. As new technologies emerge and standard websites are converted to ones can easily be accessed by mobile devices, companies will need to ensure that there websites are mobile-friendly. This leads the way for new and innovative opportunities to provide the consumer with improved brand and marketing experiences.
10. Create an effective email marketing strategy:
Introduce an effective Email communications strategy as part of your marketing strategy to grow your existing customer base and to expand your client base significantly through permission marketing and regular targeted communications. Engaging your customers with relevant, targeted information when, where, and how they want it is crucial to marketing success. By combining technological advances with tried-and-tested best practices, the future still looks bright for email marketers.
To conquer commercial combat, a significantly powerful Internet presence, supported by a brilliant E-Marketing Strategy, is paramount to ensuring that you remain competitive, increase revenue and magnetize your customers!
Article written and credits to:Gillian Meier
Sunday, January 13, 2008
3 Websites That Will Drive More Traffic To Your Internet Business Blog
There are as many ways as there are ideas to get visitors to come to your blog. In this article we'll focus on social bookmarking and news websites. Let's look at 3 and see how they work.
OnlyWire.com
By definition OnlyWire is a social bookmarking service that allows you to submit your articles or blog posts to many social bookmarking websites at once. Social bookmarking allows internet users to classify pages they would like to bookmark with tags instead of keeping them in a bookmark folder on their computer. These bookmarks can then be shared by all online users of the social bookmarking website. The theory behind social bookmarking websites is that if you find something interesting or useful on the web then the odds are high that someone else using the bookmarking website will find it interesting as well.
Social bookmarking websites are very popular with the major search engines, so if your blog posts can be found on these social bookmarking sites they will be noticed by the search engines as well. Additionally, as people bookmark resources that they find useful, resources that are of more use are bookmarked by more users. Thus, such a system will "rank" a resource based on its perceived utility. This is arguably a more useful way to get information than other systems which rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.
When you create an account with OnlyWire you'll be initially asked to sign up for all of the bookmarking sites that OnlyWire will submit your blog posts to. This initial effort will allow OnlyWire to bookmark you blogs on 10 or more social bookmarking sites all from a button installed on your browser's tool bar. Once you set up your account and are ready to submit a post you'll simply need to enter the title of the post, a short description, the main keywords that describe your post(tags), and the category that it fits. Over time you will find more and more of your posts ranking in the search engines.
Stumbleupon.com
StumbleUpon works on the same premise as OnlyWire and is also assigned a button on your browsers tool bar for when you are ready to submit your content. The difference with OnlyWire is that there is also a community component so you can add friends to your account and let them see what you've been bookmarking and vice versa. You can form networks of people with similar bookmarking interest, and vote on sites that have been bookmarked.
Digg.com
Submitting your blog posts to Digg.com is a great and fast way for quality traffic. Digg was create for people to share content from anywhere on the web. You can create an account to submit your posts which are then read and rated by it's users. By submitting informative and helpful items you can create popularity and be promoted to the front page. This can create a stream of traffic that lasts a long time and potentially cause your blog to be seen my millions of users. Another advantage of Digg is that all information is equal when it is submitted and only becomes ranked higher by the people who vote for it. If you have a way of tracking the traffic to your blog you will notice visitors from Digg after every submission from people across the globe.
As you can see, there are many ways to get free traffic to your internet business blog. These methods don't take much time at all and can have a long lasting effect on your blog traffic. Social bookmarking websites are also significant to the search engines which is where most websites and blog traffic comes from. Becoming consistent at using these sites every time you make a new post is the technique will work to get some good traffic to your internet business blog.
OnlyWire.com
By definition OnlyWire is a social bookmarking service that allows you to submit your articles or blog posts to many social bookmarking websites at once. Social bookmarking allows internet users to classify pages they would like to bookmark with tags instead of keeping them in a bookmark folder on their computer. These bookmarks can then be shared by all online users of the social bookmarking website. The theory behind social bookmarking websites is that if you find something interesting or useful on the web then the odds are high that someone else using the bookmarking website will find it interesting as well.
Social bookmarking websites are very popular with the major search engines, so if your blog posts can be found on these social bookmarking sites they will be noticed by the search engines as well. Additionally, as people bookmark resources that they find useful, resources that are of more use are bookmarked by more users. Thus, such a system will "rank" a resource based on its perceived utility. This is arguably a more useful way to get information than other systems which rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.
When you create an account with OnlyWire you'll be initially asked to sign up for all of the bookmarking sites that OnlyWire will submit your blog posts to. This initial effort will allow OnlyWire to bookmark you blogs on 10 or more social bookmarking sites all from a button installed on your browser's tool bar. Once you set up your account and are ready to submit a post you'll simply need to enter the title of the post, a short description, the main keywords that describe your post(tags), and the category that it fits. Over time you will find more and more of your posts ranking in the search engines.
Stumbleupon.com
StumbleUpon works on the same premise as OnlyWire and is also assigned a button on your browsers tool bar for when you are ready to submit your content. The difference with OnlyWire is that there is also a community component so you can add friends to your account and let them see what you've been bookmarking and vice versa. You can form networks of people with similar bookmarking interest, and vote on sites that have been bookmarked.
Digg.com
Submitting your blog posts to Digg.com is a great and fast way for quality traffic. Digg was create for people to share content from anywhere on the web. You can create an account to submit your posts which are then read and rated by it's users. By submitting informative and helpful items you can create popularity and be promoted to the front page. This can create a stream of traffic that lasts a long time and potentially cause your blog to be seen my millions of users. Another advantage of Digg is that all information is equal when it is submitted and only becomes ranked higher by the people who vote for it. If you have a way of tracking the traffic to your blog you will notice visitors from Digg after every submission from people across the globe.
As you can see, there are many ways to get free traffic to your internet business blog. These methods don't take much time at all and can have a long lasting effect on your blog traffic. Social bookmarking websites are also significant to the search engines which is where most websites and blog traffic comes from. Becoming consistent at using these sites every time you make a new post is the technique will work to get some good traffic to your internet business blog.
Social Bookmarking Quiz
Take this Social Bookmarking Quiz and determine how much you know about the collective voice!
What Is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is a web 2.0 fad where users indicate that a specific web page, article, podcast, video, or other content is of particular value. The "bookmark" is seen as a vote for that item. The more users who bookmark an item, the more pronounced (popular) the item becomes within the social bookmarking network.
What Are The Major Social Networks?
Different social networks appeal to different demographics. For example, "Digg" is a relatively technical social network, so the focus of most resources found in Digg are technical in nature. "Delicious" contains a wider variety of materials, and is easier for the average user to manage. Here are a few of the most popular networks:
Digg - http://www.digg.com - technical users
del.icio.us - http://del.icio.us
StumbleUpon - http://www.stumbleupon.com
Reddit - http://www.reddit.com
Furl - http://www.furl.com
What Are Social Bookmarking Chicklets?
Social bookmarking "chicklets" are icons that webmasters place on their web pages, which identify the various social bookmarking networks. Typically when they are included on a web page, the visitor can click the icon and it will automatically bookmark that page within the social network that the chicklet represents.
Create chicklets - http://www.feedforall.com/social-bookmarks.htm
What Are The Benefits Of Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is a grassroots process that allows users to establish the value of a specific web page, article, podcast, or video. By bookmarking an item, individuals are casting a vote to endorse that specific resource. The idea is that social bookmarking gives a resource credibility; the more users who bookmark a specific item, the more valuable the resource is considered to be. Social bookmarking is all about the collective voice. Most of the social bookmarking networks increase the profile of items that receive numerous bookmarks. It probably won't be long before the major search engines begin to include social bookmarks as a part of their ranking algorithms.
What Is Social Bookmark Tagging?
Tagging is used as a way to categorize related bookmarks. The tags are keywords that relate to the resource. In most cases, users can search on specific tags to locate similar bookmarked items.
How Is Social Bookmarking "User-Generated Content"?
Social bookmarking is all about people power. "Users" enter their favorites, and the social bookmarking networks manage all of the user information, provide aggregate data by keeping score, and manage social bookmark tags. Essentially, without "users" the social bookmarking websites would not have any content.
What Are Some Of The Popular Uses For Social Bookmarking?
Scholars and researchers often use social bookmarking to share research material and information. News headlines often find their way into social bookmarking networks, and users determine the popularity of a story with their voting power.
Is Social Bookmarking A Good Search Engine Optimization Technique?
While social bookmarking may generate some marginal attention for you, the content quality must be decent in order for others to endorse the site. The power of the collective voice and multiple bookmarks is what will really draw attention to your website. Social bookmarking will certainly not hurt your search engine optimization efforts, but social bookmarking alone will not result in a top search engine ranking.
Are Social Bookmarks Currently A Factor In Search Engine Ranking?
At this time it does not appear that any of the major search engines use social bookmarking as part of their ranking algorithms. That said, the incoming links for social bookmarking sites certainly do not hurt a website's search ranking. It is likely only a matter of time before the major search engines begin to use the collective voice as part of their ranking algorithms, as it is becoming too loud to ignore.
What Is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is a web 2.0 fad where users indicate that a specific web page, article, podcast, video, or other content is of particular value. The "bookmark" is seen as a vote for that item. The more users who bookmark an item, the more pronounced (popular) the item becomes within the social bookmarking network.
What Are The Major Social Networks?
Different social networks appeal to different demographics. For example, "Digg" is a relatively technical social network, so the focus of most resources found in Digg are technical in nature. "Delicious" contains a wider variety of materials, and is easier for the average user to manage. Here are a few of the most popular networks:
Digg - http://www.digg.com - technical users
del.icio.us - http://del.icio.us
StumbleUpon - http://www.stumbleupon.com
Reddit - http://www.reddit.com
Furl - http://www.furl.com
What Are Social Bookmarking Chicklets?
Social bookmarking "chicklets" are icons that webmasters place on their web pages, which identify the various social bookmarking networks. Typically when they are included on a web page, the visitor can click the icon and it will automatically bookmark that page within the social network that the chicklet represents.
Create chicklets - http://www.feedforall.com/social-bookmarks.htm
What Are The Benefits Of Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is a grassroots process that allows users to establish the value of a specific web page, article, podcast, or video. By bookmarking an item, individuals are casting a vote to endorse that specific resource. The idea is that social bookmarking gives a resource credibility; the more users who bookmark a specific item, the more valuable the resource is considered to be. Social bookmarking is all about the collective voice. Most of the social bookmarking networks increase the profile of items that receive numerous bookmarks. It probably won't be long before the major search engines begin to include social bookmarks as a part of their ranking algorithms.
What Is Social Bookmark Tagging?
Tagging is used as a way to categorize related bookmarks. The tags are keywords that relate to the resource. In most cases, users can search on specific tags to locate similar bookmarked items.
How Is Social Bookmarking "User-Generated Content"?
Social bookmarking is all about people power. "Users" enter their favorites, and the social bookmarking networks manage all of the user information, provide aggregate data by keeping score, and manage social bookmark tags. Essentially, without "users" the social bookmarking websites would not have any content.
What Are Some Of The Popular Uses For Social Bookmarking?
Scholars and researchers often use social bookmarking to share research material and information. News headlines often find their way into social bookmarking networks, and users determine the popularity of a story with their voting power.
Is Social Bookmarking A Good Search Engine Optimization Technique?
While social bookmarking may generate some marginal attention for you, the content quality must be decent in order for others to endorse the site. The power of the collective voice and multiple bookmarks is what will really draw attention to your website. Social bookmarking will certainly not hurt your search engine optimization efforts, but social bookmarking alone will not result in a top search engine ranking.
Are Social Bookmarks Currently A Factor In Search Engine Ranking?
At this time it does not appear that any of the major search engines use social bookmarking as part of their ranking algorithms. That said, the incoming links for social bookmarking sites certainly do not hurt a website's search ranking. It is likely only a matter of time before the major search engines begin to use the collective voice as part of their ranking algorithms, as it is becoming too loud to ignore.
Creating A Profitable Newsletter
Do you want to use email to market your business to consumers? It can be difficult designing a plan that will generate interest and additional sales. It can also be hard to determine how often you want to send an email to consumers. Have you thought about creating a business newsletter and emailing it to consumers? This is a great opportunity to keep your business name in their mind. You can also send the newsletter on a regular basis. A monthly newsletter is very common, but some companies choose to send one weekly while others do it only every three months. The choice depends on the type of business you have, the amount of content you have, and the time and money you have to invest in the project.
A great way to get consumers interested in your newsletter is to ask them what they are looking for. Let them know you encourage their questions, suggestions, comments, and feedback. Make sure they know you will address their concerns as well. Make sure you use some of these consumer replies in each newsletter. This shows you care about them and their satisfaction. It is also a wonderful way for your business to know what is working and what you still need to improve on.
An effective newsletter talks about various aspects of the company, upcoming events, sales, promotions, and new products. Try to arrange the information so that it is informative without appearing to be directed at only sales. You want the consumer to look forward to your future newsletters. Keep the information informative for the reader while laying the ground work for future sells. Always remember who your target audience is and write articles that will appeal to them.
Your newsletter should also offer tips. Customers love that. Try safety tips, unique uses for the product, etc. These all serve to keep the reader interested as well as promote your business. Offer a great promotion or discount in each newsletter as well. Make sure such promotions have an expiration date. This will motivate the consumer to make a purchase now rather than in the future.
The layout of your newsletter is important as well. The visual of nothing but a jumble of words isn't easy on the eyes. Try using a distinct break in the articles or using a two column layout. If your newsletter isn't visually appealing it doesn't matter how good the content is because many readers will not take the time to focus on the information. Be realistic about the amount of content you can put into one newsletter. Don't use the smallest font just to get more material in. Try some basics in the beginning and then expand. You can add features and regular sections as your newsletter evolves. If the newsletter is going to be your main source of marketing, then make sure you have staff dedicated to its development. Too many businesses just expect their employees to take on one more task, leading to a newsletter that is done, but not effective. If you have a team dedicated to the development and strategy behind each newsletter they will be more effective.
Take the time to test your newsletter on the various email service providers because many of them work differently. You don't want a large percentage of your customers not being able to read the newsletter because they all subscribe to an email service provider who has a system unable to read your material. Test the main email providers out there before you release the newsletter by email to save you the disappointment of finding out later many people couldn't read it.
Email marketing is very effective if you take the time to use an approach that is informative and builds a relationship with the customer rather than just pushing your products or services. A newsletter is a great way to accomplish this. It also opens the door for you to email information to the customer on a regular basis, depending on how often you want to create a newsletter. There is nothing threatening about a newsletter. Do all you can to make it inviting. Also, don't forget to express your sincere gratitude to your valued customers in your newsletters as well. We all like to be appreciated. Done in this way the newsletter will become a valuable and profitable tool for you.
Article written by Chris Haycock.
A great way to get consumers interested in your newsletter is to ask them what they are looking for. Let them know you encourage their questions, suggestions, comments, and feedback. Make sure they know you will address their concerns as well. Make sure you use some of these consumer replies in each newsletter. This shows you care about them and their satisfaction. It is also a wonderful way for your business to know what is working and what you still need to improve on.
An effective newsletter talks about various aspects of the company, upcoming events, sales, promotions, and new products. Try to arrange the information so that it is informative without appearing to be directed at only sales. You want the consumer to look forward to your future newsletters. Keep the information informative for the reader while laying the ground work for future sells. Always remember who your target audience is and write articles that will appeal to them.
Your newsletter should also offer tips. Customers love that. Try safety tips, unique uses for the product, etc. These all serve to keep the reader interested as well as promote your business. Offer a great promotion or discount in each newsletter as well. Make sure such promotions have an expiration date. This will motivate the consumer to make a purchase now rather than in the future.
The layout of your newsletter is important as well. The visual of nothing but a jumble of words isn't easy on the eyes. Try using a distinct break in the articles or using a two column layout. If your newsletter isn't visually appealing it doesn't matter how good the content is because many readers will not take the time to focus on the information. Be realistic about the amount of content you can put into one newsletter. Don't use the smallest font just to get more material in. Try some basics in the beginning and then expand. You can add features and regular sections as your newsletter evolves. If the newsletter is going to be your main source of marketing, then make sure you have staff dedicated to its development. Too many businesses just expect their employees to take on one more task, leading to a newsletter that is done, but not effective. If you have a team dedicated to the development and strategy behind each newsletter they will be more effective.
Take the time to test your newsletter on the various email service providers because many of them work differently. You don't want a large percentage of your customers not being able to read the newsletter because they all subscribe to an email service provider who has a system unable to read your material. Test the main email providers out there before you release the newsletter by email to save you the disappointment of finding out later many people couldn't read it.
Email marketing is very effective if you take the time to use an approach that is informative and builds a relationship with the customer rather than just pushing your products or services. A newsletter is a great way to accomplish this. It also opens the door for you to email information to the customer on a regular basis, depending on how often you want to create a newsletter. There is nothing threatening about a newsletter. Do all you can to make it inviting. Also, don't forget to express your sincere gratitude to your valued customers in your newsletters as well. We all like to be appreciated. Done in this way the newsletter will become a valuable and profitable tool for you.
Article written by Chris Haycock.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Greatest Challenges for Marketer’s Going Ahead?
As every one are aware that the greatest challenge for the Marketing professional is them going forward. Thousand of acknowledge these facts. Some of the best tips are :
The challenges facing by the interactive marketing community are very much the same as that faced by the entire marketing community. And thus every marketing professional must address the interactive/online marketing medium.
Some might say that the challenges are things like "social media" or "search engine optimization" or "integrating online and offline." But the real issues are much more basic, much more fundamental to the day-to-day functioning of the individual and organization.
Some of the few challenges, and my recommendations for dealing with them:
Time:
"I have to get this e-mailer out today; can we talk about our e-newsletter and landing page strategy next week?"
As online marketers, we are all stretched way too thin. Let me admit that it's never really about a lack of time; it's about prioritizing time, right? We can do whatever we want; it just depends on what we decide to do first. As it applies to online marketing, we get so caught up in the day-to-day execution of existing campaigns, that we never take the right amount of time each week, month or year to say, "What can I do, which will have the largest impact on my marketing goals?" I'd argue taking the time to properly research what your customers do online and where they spend their time would be paramount, but rarely do we do our homework.
Recommendation: Familiarize yourself with "website usability" and start testing or learning from others who have already done so.
Saying no (to client, agency or boss)
"I just read about a blog that Starbucks' CEO does… we need to do that!"
Its really important to start saying No to the 1,000s of ideas that are out there today is really needed, regardless of whether it's a request from your boss, client or agency. Have the courage to ask for the research, the case studies and the plan for execution first, before taking on activities that are hot or sound cool, but, in the final analysis, have very low utility.
An example of such would be saying no to building a blog until you have mapped out the audience, the time it takes to maintain such and what the desired outcome would be.
Recommendation: Write down your list of priorities for the year, and if this new idea does not help one of these, then put it in the idea box for next year.
Getting involved
"Facebook is for kids. I don't really see why I'd want to join, plus who has the time for that?!"
One of my favorite conversations focuses on social media and social networking. Most marketing professionals over the age of 30 are skeptical when it comes to social networks like Facebook, reason being, they've never taken the time to explore the medium. The psychological elements inherent here cannot be explained; they must be experienced, and then, and only then, can you be the judge.
Recommendation: Join Facebook. It's not going to be of huge utility at first, but put in some time and poke around; you'll then see.
Unifying stakeholders
"IT doesn't think we need it; boss-man/woman is too busy for it and marketing department has all sorts of opinions."
So many people these days have opinions on what's best as it relates to online marketing. IT professionals feel they can create everything; your executives are not willing to spend time thinking about it because they are too busy, and your peers have certain opinions based on what they read and see. Your annual budget and strategy meetings seem to default to whoever has the loudest voice and/or the biggest ego.
Recommendation: Spend a day learning best practices together as a team. Have an executive debriefing (a consultant or advisor who will share what's happening in the marketplace and why companies are successful).
Budgeting
"Got shot down again on getting budget for a new analytics tool; not going there again."
Most companies still have the same formula for allocation of marketing budget they've had for years. In fact, I'd say the majority of marketing departments take a look at last year's budget and tweak it, taking some dollars here, and placing some there, etc. I bet if you were able to find your company's marketing budget from 20 years ago, you'd see the same layout.
Recommendation: Take out a blank sheet of paper, write down top 10 things your target customers do with their time on a daily basis and the top three places they will search for your offerings, and then start talking about where to spend your money.
Evaluating communication channels
"If 92 percent of people use the web to evaluate purchase options, why do we only spend 20 percent of our budget on our website?"
Most people don't realize that all of our marketing efforts flow through our website at one time or another. Whether it is a search campaign, which obviously starts the buying cycle by linking to the website, or whether it's a print ad that has the URL, no one today will pick up the phone and ask your sales people to explain the product or service; they will find that information on your website. So getting that right is critical!
Recommendation: Build some real world user personas and use cases observing how easy it is to find your product/services (as if you are that customer); or better yet have five random people go to your website and watch them (no guiding).
Removing ROI
"What will be the new ROI?"
ROI is absolute, but if a company bases all decisions on guaranteed ROI, that company would not have started in the first place. Much of marketing is testing, research and learning how to effectively communicate with our customers. So our budget must reflect this, or our company will never see incrementally better results.
Recommendation: Fight for R&D in your budget so you will have the latitude to discover the one killer campaign or marketing idea.
Willingness to take risk
"We never really did much for SEO, because there are no guarantees and we know nothing about it."
Today's technology is intertwined with marketing (CRM software, web analytics and important elements like search engine optimization). As premiere marketing executives, we are not so comfortable with the technology side of the equation, so we shy away from what we don't know because it poses a big risk for us. So, we must go out there and talk to those who do know. We must educate ourselves and get over the fear (as President Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"); otherwise, we risk a massive opportunity lost.
Recommendation: Find your most feared technology element and search for a consultant or educational material to just educate you first; THEN, decide on what your next step will be.
Education
"We really need help on how to proceed with next year's planning… we don't really know where to start."
Online marketing is so new and constantly changing that if we don't take the time to educate ourselves (team, boss and agency), then we will be stuck with half-baked opinions vs. hard and true factually based best practices with which to drive our efforts.
Recommendation: Find an educational event on the online marketing areas of greatest interest and treat your key stakeholders -- go to this event and learn from the experts.
Understanding human behavior
"Why would anyone want to go to a website and read the user reviews or ratings on our product/service when they can just call us?"
It may seem strange, but human behavior is what drives all marketing. It's the understanding of how your customers behave that drives which communication channel (TV/radio/print/online) you choose to spend money in. It is the behavior of your customers that drives your messaging to resonate with them. And now, human behavior has changed forever. The preferred method of communicating is electronic (email); the preferred information source is online (RSS); the preferred pre-purchase research channel is Google. So, we must go back to human behavior again -- as was witnessed in the 1950s with TV -- and understand what it takes today to get the message out, loudly and clearly, forever embedded in the memory of our customers/clients.
Recommendation: Watch and observe your customers' behaviors.
would like to thank Aaron Kahlow who is the CEO and managing partner of BusinessOnLine, as well as founder and chair of the Online Marketing Summit for this aricle.
The challenges facing by the interactive marketing community are very much the same as that faced by the entire marketing community. And thus every marketing professional must address the interactive/online marketing medium.
Some might say that the challenges are things like "social media" or "search engine optimization" or "integrating online and offline." But the real issues are much more basic, much more fundamental to the day-to-day functioning of the individual and organization.
Some of the few challenges, and my recommendations for dealing with them:
Time:
"I have to get this e-mailer out today; can we talk about our e-newsletter and landing page strategy next week?"
As online marketers, we are all stretched way too thin. Let me admit that it's never really about a lack of time; it's about prioritizing time, right? We can do whatever we want; it just depends on what we decide to do first. As it applies to online marketing, we get so caught up in the day-to-day execution of existing campaigns, that we never take the right amount of time each week, month or year to say, "What can I do, which will have the largest impact on my marketing goals?" I'd argue taking the time to properly research what your customers do online and where they spend their time would be paramount, but rarely do we do our homework.
Recommendation: Familiarize yourself with "website usability" and start testing or learning from others who have already done so.
Saying no (to client, agency or boss)
"I just read about a blog that Starbucks' CEO does… we need to do that!"
Its really important to start saying No to the 1,000s of ideas that are out there today is really needed, regardless of whether it's a request from your boss, client or agency. Have the courage to ask for the research, the case studies and the plan for execution first, before taking on activities that are hot or sound cool, but, in the final analysis, have very low utility.
An example of such would be saying no to building a blog until you have mapped out the audience, the time it takes to maintain such and what the desired outcome would be.
Recommendation: Write down your list of priorities for the year, and if this new idea does not help one of these, then put it in the idea box for next year.
Getting involved
"Facebook is for kids. I don't really see why I'd want to join, plus who has the time for that?!"
One of my favorite conversations focuses on social media and social networking. Most marketing professionals over the age of 30 are skeptical when it comes to social networks like Facebook, reason being, they've never taken the time to explore the medium. The psychological elements inherent here cannot be explained; they must be experienced, and then, and only then, can you be the judge.
Recommendation: Join Facebook. It's not going to be of huge utility at first, but put in some time and poke around; you'll then see.
Unifying stakeholders
"IT doesn't think we need it; boss-man/woman is too busy for it and marketing department has all sorts of opinions."
So many people these days have opinions on what's best as it relates to online marketing. IT professionals feel they can create everything; your executives are not willing to spend time thinking about it because they are too busy, and your peers have certain opinions based on what they read and see. Your annual budget and strategy meetings seem to default to whoever has the loudest voice and/or the biggest ego.
Recommendation: Spend a day learning best practices together as a team. Have an executive debriefing (a consultant or advisor who will share what's happening in the marketplace and why companies are successful).
Budgeting
"Got shot down again on getting budget for a new analytics tool; not going there again."
Most companies still have the same formula for allocation of marketing budget they've had for years. In fact, I'd say the majority of marketing departments take a look at last year's budget and tweak it, taking some dollars here, and placing some there, etc. I bet if you were able to find your company's marketing budget from 20 years ago, you'd see the same layout.
Recommendation: Take out a blank sheet of paper, write down top 10 things your target customers do with their time on a daily basis and the top three places they will search for your offerings, and then start talking about where to spend your money.
Evaluating communication channels
"If 92 percent of people use the web to evaluate purchase options, why do we only spend 20 percent of our budget on our website?"
Most people don't realize that all of our marketing efforts flow through our website at one time or another. Whether it is a search campaign, which obviously starts the buying cycle by linking to the website, or whether it's a print ad that has the URL, no one today will pick up the phone and ask your sales people to explain the product or service; they will find that information on your website. So getting that right is critical!
Recommendation: Build some real world user personas and use cases observing how easy it is to find your product/services (as if you are that customer); or better yet have five random people go to your website and watch them (no guiding).
Removing ROI
"What will be the new ROI?"
ROI is absolute, but if a company bases all decisions on guaranteed ROI, that company would not have started in the first place. Much of marketing is testing, research and learning how to effectively communicate with our customers. So our budget must reflect this, or our company will never see incrementally better results.
Recommendation: Fight for R&D in your budget so you will have the latitude to discover the one killer campaign or marketing idea.
Willingness to take risk
"We never really did much for SEO, because there are no guarantees and we know nothing about it."
Today's technology is intertwined with marketing (CRM software, web analytics and important elements like search engine optimization). As premiere marketing executives, we are not so comfortable with the technology side of the equation, so we shy away from what we don't know because it poses a big risk for us. So, we must go out there and talk to those who do know. We must educate ourselves and get over the fear (as President Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"); otherwise, we risk a massive opportunity lost.
Recommendation: Find your most feared technology element and search for a consultant or educational material to just educate you first; THEN, decide on what your next step will be.
Education
"We really need help on how to proceed with next year's planning… we don't really know where to start."
Online marketing is so new and constantly changing that if we don't take the time to educate ourselves (team, boss and agency), then we will be stuck with half-baked opinions vs. hard and true factually based best practices with which to drive our efforts.
Recommendation: Find an educational event on the online marketing areas of greatest interest and treat your key stakeholders -- go to this event and learn from the experts.
Understanding human behavior
"Why would anyone want to go to a website and read the user reviews or ratings on our product/service when they can just call us?"
It may seem strange, but human behavior is what drives all marketing. It's the understanding of how your customers behave that drives which communication channel (TV/radio/print/online) you choose to spend money in. It is the behavior of your customers that drives your messaging to resonate with them. And now, human behavior has changed forever. The preferred method of communicating is electronic (email); the preferred information source is online (RSS); the preferred pre-purchase research channel is Google. So, we must go back to human behavior again -- as was witnessed in the 1950s with TV -- and understand what it takes today to get the message out, loudly and clearly, forever embedded in the memory of our customers/clients.
Recommendation: Watch and observe your customers' behaviors.
would like to thank Aaron Kahlow who is the CEO and managing partner of BusinessOnLine, as well as founder and chair of the Online Marketing Summit for this aricle.
Friday, January 11, 2008
High hopes, but small launch budget? Use Blogs
Web 2.0 formats can be a godsend to those with a strong product or service offering, but not enough juice to lubricate the passage to market.
For those without adequate resources or access to a ready database, or competence (or confidence!) to mount a high-profile launch or even the now favoured formula of launch PR and media buzz + DM, a good strategic launch pad could be the blog (and social media), especially if concept-selling is the first item on the agenda.
If you don’t already have a database to generate the first leads, you might find DM via mail, outbound email and telemarketing still too expensive, and complementary search marketing too slow to drive ROI. As a startup, you’re small: you may not have even the manpower for hands-on liaison with vendor agencies. If not a startup, you may still have a small budget for a particular offering. But a viral campaign based on the blog format can save your bacon.
The blog can draw leads from your targeted prospects like a magnet. Whether they’re consumers or institutional buyers, the Net is where prospects come to you, as in a mall. They do the searching and evaluating - calling the shots on enquiry or purchase. The blog route can give you salience, ensure that your prospects seek you out, instead of you shedding lakhs to locate them.
Of course, nothing comes slam-dunk easy.
A low-cost start up entails some homework, some shrewd targeting for you. Whatever your product or service category, you need to know what needs drive your target prospects, motivate them to search the Net for a solution. That makes it somewhat easy to anticipate the keywords they’re likely to use to reach you.
The not-so-easy part is writing your blogs. The wise marketer has begun to realise, as the numbers come in, that nifty (and sometimes only border-line legal) manipulation of search engines is not the name of the game. The embedded and hidden battery of keywords may bring the horse to water, but it’s the horse that has to drink. The bottom line is getting your blog site’s visitors to respond as you want them to.
The blog is such a flexible medium, admits so many variations of content, style and tone of voice, your site gives you enormous freedom to approach the same set of consumer concerns from many different angles, using fundamental consumer appeals, topical issues, maybe the screening of a blockbuster, or even popular controversies.
At the same time, a blog can’t become a blatant selling tool, for then it loses its basic purpose: the dialogue, the interactive process. This again is not as difficult as it may be so long as you approach it in the spirit of R&D rather than marketing; that is, retain an objective outlook, inviting discussion as focus group leaders do, and gently leading the dialogue into your desired channels.
Here’s also where that software tool we mentioned enters your picture: an SEO tool that will analyse and report on the success rate of your blog, help fine-tune it, and show far you have advanced its appeal. You can’t do without one such tool, but again, it’s the blog’s content and relevance that count, and whet the surfer’s appetite to go from blog to website where you pick up a live lead, or close the deal.
The success of the blog site can bring you two kinds of reward – it can generate leads, and it can give you more detailed feedback on your target’s mindset. It can even tell you if your offering has the potential to serve more than one segment or consumer group – invaluable data that can steadily improve your offering’s features and marketability, and also build the long-term dialogue that helps retain customer loyalty. Invaluable assets in the epoch of globalisation, when you never really know from where and how your next competitor will emerge.
So, if you really know what needs your offering is meant to fulfill, you know what will arouse and hold the blog visitor’s curiosity and interest.
The experience in other countries has thrown up some interesting cues.
Blogging to tease: Start your blog before your offering hits the market. Give your bloggers a preview or a series of peeks. During the product development period, build on these relationships with several types of bloggers, adding comments to their postings and advancing the ongoing dialogue. Depending on the product or service type, the process can be started months in advance, raising the perceived need for your offering several notches before it culminates in the launch.
Blogging at the launch: From this point on, the blog becomes a CRM tool in its purest sense. Besides visitors, who have already been a part of the blogging environment, mentioning the blog at the launch will bring in more visitors: the early trials will provide authentic feedback on the consumer experience. Bouquets and brickbats (which can be very useful for making timely course corrections).
Blogging for shareholder value: The blogging dialogue on your product or service may seem to have no relevance to the value of your stock. But doesn’t it? If you really keep your ears pricked up, the quality and level of dialogue in your blog could help give you pretty fair sounding of your standing in the capital market. Even more so, if you are able to channel the dialogue in such a direction when getting ready to make a stock offering.
Blogging and the rest of your media mix: We started with the premise that, where scarcity of resource is a constraint, blogging can provide a relatively low-cost alternative route to prime targets. What happens after? Do you shut down the blog site? There may be some justification for doing so if your web site alone suffices in the normal course: certainly, a mere ornamental blog is of no use whatever.
If you’ve made a successful start, however, it is certainly a regressive step to shut down or downgrade a blog. For a blog could be the most effective weapon in the armoury of integrated, interactive marketing. Communications in almost any other medium – including a PR medium such as the press release – can be made to invite responses to, and through, your blog site.
The medium that makes for cost effective communication for a low-budget launch now becomes the vehicle for a potentially endless interaction with buyers keen to communicate with you: true symbiosis.
For those without adequate resources or access to a ready database, or competence (or confidence!) to mount a high-profile launch or even the now favoured formula of launch PR and media buzz + DM, a good strategic launch pad could be the blog (and social media), especially if concept-selling is the first item on the agenda.
If you don’t already have a database to generate the first leads, you might find DM via mail, outbound email and telemarketing still too expensive, and complementary search marketing too slow to drive ROI. As a startup, you’re small: you may not have even the manpower for hands-on liaison with vendor agencies. If not a startup, you may still have a small budget for a particular offering. But a viral campaign based on the blog format can save your bacon.
The blog can draw leads from your targeted prospects like a magnet. Whether they’re consumers or institutional buyers, the Net is where prospects come to you, as in a mall. They do the searching and evaluating - calling the shots on enquiry or purchase. The blog route can give you salience, ensure that your prospects seek you out, instead of you shedding lakhs to locate them.
Of course, nothing comes slam-dunk easy.
A low-cost start up entails some homework, some shrewd targeting for you. Whatever your product or service category, you need to know what needs drive your target prospects, motivate them to search the Net for a solution. That makes it somewhat easy to anticipate the keywords they’re likely to use to reach you.
The not-so-easy part is writing your blogs. The wise marketer has begun to realise, as the numbers come in, that nifty (and sometimes only border-line legal) manipulation of search engines is not the name of the game. The embedded and hidden battery of keywords may bring the horse to water, but it’s the horse that has to drink. The bottom line is getting your blog site’s visitors to respond as you want them to.
The blog is such a flexible medium, admits so many variations of content, style and tone of voice, your site gives you enormous freedom to approach the same set of consumer concerns from many different angles, using fundamental consumer appeals, topical issues, maybe the screening of a blockbuster, or even popular controversies.
At the same time, a blog can’t become a blatant selling tool, for then it loses its basic purpose: the dialogue, the interactive process. This again is not as difficult as it may be so long as you approach it in the spirit of R&D rather than marketing; that is, retain an objective outlook, inviting discussion as focus group leaders do, and gently leading the dialogue into your desired channels.
Here’s also where that software tool we mentioned enters your picture: an SEO tool that will analyse and report on the success rate of your blog, help fine-tune it, and show far you have advanced its appeal. You can’t do without one such tool, but again, it’s the blog’s content and relevance that count, and whet the surfer’s appetite to go from blog to website where you pick up a live lead, or close the deal.
The success of the blog site can bring you two kinds of reward – it can generate leads, and it can give you more detailed feedback on your target’s mindset. It can even tell you if your offering has the potential to serve more than one segment or consumer group – invaluable data that can steadily improve your offering’s features and marketability, and also build the long-term dialogue that helps retain customer loyalty. Invaluable assets in the epoch of globalisation, when you never really know from where and how your next competitor will emerge.
So, if you really know what needs your offering is meant to fulfill, you know what will arouse and hold the blog visitor’s curiosity and interest.
The experience in other countries has thrown up some interesting cues.
Blogging to tease: Start your blog before your offering hits the market. Give your bloggers a preview or a series of peeks. During the product development period, build on these relationships with several types of bloggers, adding comments to their postings and advancing the ongoing dialogue. Depending on the product or service type, the process can be started months in advance, raising the perceived need for your offering several notches before it culminates in the launch.
Blogging at the launch: From this point on, the blog becomes a CRM tool in its purest sense. Besides visitors, who have already been a part of the blogging environment, mentioning the blog at the launch will bring in more visitors: the early trials will provide authentic feedback on the consumer experience. Bouquets and brickbats (which can be very useful for making timely course corrections).
Blogging for shareholder value: The blogging dialogue on your product or service may seem to have no relevance to the value of your stock. But doesn’t it? If you really keep your ears pricked up, the quality and level of dialogue in your blog could help give you pretty fair sounding of your standing in the capital market. Even more so, if you are able to channel the dialogue in such a direction when getting ready to make a stock offering.
Blogging and the rest of your media mix: We started with the premise that, where scarcity of resource is a constraint, blogging can provide a relatively low-cost alternative route to prime targets. What happens after? Do you shut down the blog site? There may be some justification for doing so if your web site alone suffices in the normal course: certainly, a mere ornamental blog is of no use whatever.
If you’ve made a successful start, however, it is certainly a regressive step to shut down or downgrade a blog. For a blog could be the most effective weapon in the armoury of integrated, interactive marketing. Communications in almost any other medium – including a PR medium such as the press release – can be made to invite responses to, and through, your blog site.
The medium that makes for cost effective communication for a low-budget launch now becomes the vehicle for a potentially endless interaction with buyers keen to communicate with you: true symbiosis.
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