The Advertising of Yesterday Part II

Welcome to Friday and the next edition of "The Advertising of Yesterday."

Here we take a trip back to October of 1967 with General Motors and what is now AC Delco.



I have to say, I think this is an effective ad. Whether you are looking at it in 1967 or today, the message of reliability comes across strong. After all, you want a battery you can rely on, especially if you find yourself in a bad part of town. One might argue that the ad headline, "If you drive places where you wouldn't want to walk" means a little more in 2008 than in did in 67.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

The Advertising of Yesterday

I am starting a new series called, "The Advertising of Yesterday." I have in my possession a sizable amount of circa 1964-1972 magazines. Of course, these magazines have a great selection of old ads from the period. Some of the best are the cigarette ads.

I have already featured a few of these smoking ads in previous posts.

Lets roll back the calendar and take a trip to June, 1965.



Some Observations:

• Of course the obvious "Springtime Fresh." Boy, has the image of cigarette smoking changed.
• Why is he carrying a gun? Were they hunting?

Obviously guns and cigarettes weren't evil yet in 65. So there you have it. Tune in every Friday to see the next installment of "The Advertising of Yesterday."

 

Online Ad Spending Is Up - No Kidding?

Is it really any shock to hear that Internet advertising is up again this year?

For the 8th consecutive year, the number of dollars spent on Internet advertising has again gone up. In fact, the amount of money that advertisers spent on Internet related ads was the leading increase with 18.9% more than any other media category increase according to Nielsen. The next closest thing to the Internet was national magazines with only a 7.6% increase.

Newspaper advertising has shown a steady decline year after year and in a post about the impact of the Internet on newspapers I wrote almost a year ago, I asked the question; "will we see the death of a media in our generation?" Again, there was a decline in newsprint ad revenue which equaled over 7.5% which is up from last year's 5% decrease.

The one big surprise for me in 2007 was the increased dollars that are being spent on outdoor advertising. Normally when I hear outdoor I immediately think of traditional billboards. Now there are these fancy new-fangled digital billboards that have the capability of switching out the message very quickly to accommodate sales or whatever may be an immediate and time sensitive call to action. I have noticed that companies are also spending more money on things like vehicle wraps. From city buses to company cars, this too can be considered outdoor advertising.

According to Forrester Research, online spending is expected to hit $204 Billion, this year. Yes I said billion. The 3 big "C's" are going to continue to dominate the online market; clothes, computers and cars. The 3 of those combined will account for over 1/3 of all online sales or $70 billion.

Here's another interesting tid-bit from the recent surveys. Free shipping, a big draw in past is garnering less interest on both the consumer and the retailer levels. With the increase in ad AND consumer spending, we may see free shipping go bye bye for a while. However, I do think that it will surface frequently. After all the .99 cents or 99 dollars on almost all consumer goods has never gone away.

One last fact about demographics and online behavior and then I will leave you to your day.

"The casual shopper goes online to look for the best price, leveraging the transparency of the Internet to save money. However, more affluent customers appreciate the convenience of shopping online and are not necessarily looking for the best deal. Retailers would be wise to recognize there are significant opportunities within both audiences and should market to them accordingly." Via Forrester

Yeah, I still think this Internet thing is a fad. You'll have to pry my CB radio from my cold dead hands.

 

Marketing and Taxes

Q: What does one have to do with the other?
A: As a business, you have to spend the money on both.

Every year April 15th seems to come earlier and earlier and if you are smart about how you handle your withholdings you will get a very small refund or you have to pay in a little bit. Your marketing efforts can be managed in a parallel fashion. If you have the right message, the right delivery method and the right design, you will earn the business back many times your initial investment.

BUT, you have to do it right. More often than not, a business owner knows just about everything about their product or service but they are not a marketing expert. This same type of knowledge/skill-set division is why so many medical billing companies exist today. Medical professionals simply want to practice medicine. They don't want to run a business and are happy to turn those duties over to the experts.

Many times, business owners are persuaded to spend their advertising and marketing budgets on single source vendors. For example, a local radio rep walks into a retail electronics store and convinces the owner or manager that he has the best station in the market to attract customers. The business owner unwittingly spends his monthly budget on the ONE station that the sales rep is selling.

Now, this may or may not be the right move, but in order to truly evaluate the options in the market, you need to have a non-biased marketing consultant that will look at the big picture. A marketing consultant can evaluate the local/regional radio stations, determine which ones will be the best for the businesses demographic and make recommendation on the most effective placement

In a similar fashion, a marketing consultant can look at your entire marketing campaign and make recommendations on how to improve your image, brand awareness and your marketing budget efficiency.

I ran across a great article about marketing and post cards. It talks about "doing it right" and is really applicable to what I am talking about here. Check it out, it's definitely worth the read.

Taxes and marketing are both necessary expenditures if you are a business owner, just make sure you are using your marketing dollars wisely. When you need law advice, you seek a lawyer right? Why wouldn't you seek the help of someone who specializes in marketing? Take a look at hiring a marketing consultant, they know marketing just like you know your business.

 

Where Do You Get Your Printing?

As you may have noticed, over there on the right is another ad. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we have our second sponsor and as part of our agreement, here is the love.

Seriously, I have been in or a part of the printing industry for the better part of 7 or 8 years now and have handled everything from "quick" 2 color printing to custom embossed, die-cut, spot varnished, full color bound masterpieces. I learned a long time ago the one thing that every business owner should do is find a competent partner in the printing trade. A number of years ago I ran across a company called Pioneer Graphics in Waterloo, Iowa. Folks, I need to tell you, if you want a quality printing company, that is both intently focused on quality and customer service, you need to check out Pioneer.

Granted, they are a "sponsor" here on The Big Bald Blog but I am also a customer of theirs. Over the last 2 or 3 years, I have used them for almost 80% of my full color work and believe me, we do a TON of printing for a wide variety of clients.

Now, here's the good stuff. If you click on the ad to the right it will take you to a quote form page on the Pioneer website. At the bottom of the page there is a "promo code" box. In that box, if you enter BIGPAPPA, they are going to give you 500 FREE full color postcards with your order of $500.00 or more. AND as an added bonus, anyone that enters the BIGPAPPA promo code, they are going to be "extra aggressive" on their pricing.

So, if you're looking for mailers, direct mail services, flyers, brochures, catalogs, magazines, business cards or anything else that involves ink on paper, drop a line to my friend Jim Miller over a Pioneer Graphics. You will be glad you did.

 

Marketing With Ink And Paper

Since you are paying for it, when you send out a post card you want to maximize the amount of text on the piece to make it worth your while right?

WRONG!

I have seen this mistake made over and over. Inexperienced marketers commonly make the fatal mistake of cramming tons of text into a tiny post card, hoping to convey as much information as an 11 x 17 brochure. In fact, I have kept several examples of post cards as example of what NOT to do (similar to my business card collection) when you are contemplating a direct mail campaign. I am opting out of showing them because they may get recognized but trust me, they are terrible.

It's real easy - when you decide to throw your hat into the direct mail ring, just remember, less is more. If you flood the entire front and back of a postcard in the hopes of getting your complete message across, your wordy piece piece of post office love is going to find it's way into the round file. When this happens, the only one that benefited from your endeavor was the post office.

So what's a person to do when you want to get the most out of your direct mail program.

1. If you are promoting a "sale" focus on the time sensitive information and the action items associated with the event.
   
2. Focus on a "pain" and elude to a solution. This will elicit a contact.
3. Keep your message as short as possible and still be able to convey the "need-to-know" information.
   
4. Design an interesting "front" that will make people want to turn it over and find out more.
5. If you are engaging in a multi-month direct mail campaign, make sure all of your pieces have continuity with each other inside the confines of the campaign.

Before you begin, sit down and work out a plan for your campaign. Address who you want to target, what you want to target them with, how many times you want to "touch" them during the campaign and what is your follow up plan. If you know what you want before you approach your designer or ad exec, you will be much further ahead.

Some of our most successful direct mail campaigns have included nothing more than the company's website or one word on the front. However, the highest rate of return I have experienced, has been with dimensional mail. This type of mailing has a higher cost per piece and typically a lower volume but we have seen returns as high as 27%.

Bottom Line? Clean, simple text and design = better results

Have questions about marketing? Let me know what's on your mind. C'mon, talk to BigPappa!

 

My Favorite TV Commercial Of All Time.

I know, I know, we have been down this road before. I was hoping for something new or something fresh this year from the Super Big Game Bowl (what ever we can call it), but again, I was let down. In fact I have been disappointed since 2002 when, what I believe to be, the greatest television commercial of all time was released.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Terry Tate, Office linebacker.



Reebok made a series of shorts around the Terry Tate character. The acting is great, the effects are good, but the writing is over-the-top without being in your face. I mean seriously, take a look at the name of the company. Also, in the sensitivity training video, pay attention to the name of the HR firm that they hired.

Lester "Mighty Rasta" Speight (the actor playing Terry Tate) did an awesome job. Lines like "you kill the joe, you make some mo", and "you can't bring that weak a** stuff up in this humpity-bumpity" are simply priceless. I don't care how many times I go back and watch this, it makes me laugh every time.

So let me have it. What do YOU think is the best television commercial of all time? What is your favorite spot and why? Try and convince me otherwise and maybe I'll reconsider, but probably not. Until then Terry Tate has my vote for the best TV commercial of all time.

 

Smoking: The Advertising of Yesterday

I just love running across these old smoking ads. I used another one in a post I wrote about Mad Men.

I am fascinated by the ads from the 50's and 60's, especially the ones that were targeted to, or used the status of women to get their message across. They were so insulting by today's standards.

But wait, it gets better. What till you feast your eyes on this. Here is an actual article that I believe appeared in the Housekeeping Monthly publication, circa 1955. You may have to click on the image to enlarge it.



My how far we have come. Now be nice you guys!

 

The Decision To Buy Local

When I watch TV or listen to the radio, typically the best creative comes from non-locally owned companies. I mean seriously, how awesome is this spot. When I say locally owned I am talking about smaller business that may have 1 or more stores and serving a rather smaller geographic area. I am NOT talking about WalMart or BestBuy.

Now granted, big companies are going to have BIG budgets and can hire better talent, creative directors, and big time ad agencies. However, this doesn't mean that just because you are a local business, your advertising has to suffer. There are all kinds of ways for a smaller business to deliver good creative.

Whatever you do, DO NOT let the local TV or radio station assembly line your spot. Hire someone that has a proven track record and can demonstrate proficiency in creative, production and design. Same thing goes with your printed material. Don't sacrifice on your graphic design. Hire a professional designer or marketing company that knows design. Don't rely on someone that says, "Hey Jim Bob, I know how to use Publisher and Word. I can make you a real purdy brochure." AND, don't take your final design to a color copy shop. Have it printed by a professional, commercial printing company. Now there is an exception that I am willing to accept. If you only need 50 of the finished product, then that is an obvious exception.

Now that I went off on that tangent, here is the real question that I am wondering about and would like some answers from you guys. Marketing and advertising aside, when it comes time to make a purchase for a washer, dryer, TV, Vacuum, or whatever. Do you turn to a locally owned business or will you shop at a big box store? Let me know why you make your buying choice.

For me, I will support a local business if I can. I have even been known to pay more at a locally owned company. Now don't get me wrong, I still get toilet paper and other miscellaneous things at WalMart, Sams or Target, but when it comes to major purchases like appliances, and things of that nature, I am going to go to a local business. I have had some of my worst customer service experiences from companies like Sears, Mediacom and WellsFargo. Now bear with me as I have a tourettes episode. SEARS WILL NEVER GET A DIME OF MY MONEY AGAIN!!! Sorry about that, I am a little scarred.

Digression aside, when I make local purchases, not only is the service better in most cases, I feel I am helping a neighbor.

Your thoughts?

 

Make Money With Stockade Online Backup

Today is a historic day for The Big Bald Blog. Everyone put your hands together and welcome our very first sponsor; Stockade!

What do they do you ask. Well friends, let me tell you.

Stockade is a company that provides online file storage, data restoration and disaster recovery services. But here's the best part. For those of you interested in making money online, you can do it with Stockade. All you need to do is become a reseller and add this service to what you are already doing and you will earn 30% on all sales. AND you don't have to spend a dime to do it. You heard it right, it doesn't cost you anything. They will set you up with your own branded site, give you all the tools you need and they will do all the marketing for you. Folks, it doesn't get much better than that.

Not only are you making money as a reseller, you are providing some real value to the end users. This can be a revenue stream that supplements your existing services or you can work it full time. Either way you cut it, there are some real benefits of becoming a reseller.

• Provide a valuable service for your customers
• Generate a subscription-based, recurring revenue stream for your business
• No capital outlay for your business to get started
• Customized client software embedded with your reseller ID
• Stockade website and unique url for your new offering
• Easy to sell
• Easy for your customers to deploy
• Great profit margin
• Provided the infrastructure and technical support
  

Every company, big or small, needs to have a off-site electronic file backup plan as part of a bigger disaster recovery program. Too often as a company grows, the need for a data restoration solution is often forgotten. This is where Stockade can help.

• Backups are stored off site in a secure, world-class data center
• Redundant copy stored in a second data center over 500 miles away
• Reduces human error through automation
• Eliminates the frustration associated with handling tapes
• All stored data is encrypted using 256bit AES encryption – only your customer has the passphrase to un-encrypt the data
• Addresses HIPAA, GLBA and Sarbanes Oxley offsite data storage compliance
• Easy restoration of data
• Economical
  

Stockade takes the worry out of backing up critical data. The Stockade solution takes the human element out of the process by automatically sending the compressed and encrypted backup files off site to a secure, world-class data center via the Internet. From there a customer has total control of their files. AND as an added bonus, stockade offers a risk free trial at no charge. Don't like it? Pay nothing. The customer has nothing to loose.

The online backup services provided by Stockade are not only guaranteed to pump up your revenue generation, but it will provide some real value to your customers.

To find out how to become an online backup reseller, click the ad at the right and sign up for more information today.

 

Internet Ad Spending

Once again the reports are out and they are showing BIG numbers. According to the IAB 3rd quarter spendings set a new high at - are you ready for this - $5.2 billion. Some are claiming that the internet is on pace to break $20 billion in revenue by the end of the year. Out of the total spending, paid searches comprise 41% of the revenues.

"The continued robust growth of the industry indicates that marketers increasingly understand and appreciate the benefits of interactive advertising," said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. "Marketers large and small have come to accept digital media as the fulcrum of any marketing strategy."

With so many people having the internet at their fingertips through mobile devices and ever expanding WIFI locations, you can rest assured that this number will continue to climb until it passes most traditional forms of media.

Has the shift in your advertising budget occurred yet?

 

Sponsored Ads or SEO?

Do you spend the time or the money? I have been doing a lot of reading lately on the different approaches to site traffic generation. The big debate lately is organic SEO or PPC type advertising.

Most of the experts agree that it really depends on the type of site you have as well as the people that you are marketing to. However, many feel that anyone can benefit from some combination of the two. With a PPC campaign the results are mostly immediate but will cost you some cash. With organic SEO it will cost you less in green but cost you more in human capitol or time, AND it will take more time to build traffic through the natural link building process. Having a combination of the 2 will obviously yield better results.

Just the other day I was speaking with a business owner about his website. They have a 100% flash site that doesn't index at all on it's own for anything that they do. For the first 6 months, post launch, they relied heavily on PPC traffic. Everything was going well until they got to a certain point where they no longer had the time or the desire to continue the management of their PPC campaign. Once that fell by the wayside, so did their traffic.

So what do you do? I think every website can benefit from traditional organic SEO, especially if you have a unique product or a very narrow niche. It's easier to optimize a site for narrower niche than it would be to optimize a site for something like web hosting or web design. If you have a really broad category it is going to take longer to achieve the desired results due to the competition. This is when you may want to take a look at a PPC campaign and look at the how much competition there is for your main keywords.

Learn to take advantage of all the tools available on the internet and identify who is searching for your product. Always remember that nothing can replace quality content with appropriate keyword density. Like Eric Ward says, "It's about the veracity of the content. I'd rather have links from ugly sites created by business school professors using Netscape composer than a million from gorgeous sites about nothing, or directories with PageRank 4 that nobody has ever heard of." This excerpt is from his article, "Five Ways Link Builders Hurt Themselves."

I am curious on how you search. For me, I normally look at the organic results first and then I go to the sponsored listings on the page. How often do you click on the sponsored listings?

 

What's The Difference Between Marketing And Advertising?

People often confuse the concepts of marketing, advertising, public relations and branding. Advertising is marketing, public relations is marketing and branding is a result of advertising and marketing. However if you are still confused, I stumbled across a graphical representation on Ads of the World that does a pretty good at illustrating the 4 concepts.

For quite some time I have been a fan of the website Ads of the World. Obviously a large majority of the ads showcased on the site are from "overseas" and some of the ads wouldn't see the light of day here in the states. Nonetheless, it is a great site to see some good creative. ANYWAY, for those of you seeking the answers, here they are.



Oh yeah, happy Halloween!

 

A New Look At Advertising

Hello gang, Just got back from God's Country - Wisconsin. Hung out at the cabin for a couple to days to unplug, unwind and recharge. The only advertising I am subject to up in the north woods is the occasional beer sign at the local tavern. So there you have it - the reason for no post on Friday.

I have been thinking about how advertising has taken on many new forms over the last few years. Vehicle wraps are all over the place and now you can see moving billboards driving around various cities. People have even gone to extremes by making their body an advertising space. Certain individuals like Kari Smith and "SundayBrew" Joe are tattooing themselves with logos or websites for certain financial considerations. Some of these dollar amounts are not that impressive. After all, you are going to have this tattoo the rest of your life. For me, it better be a life changing amount of money if I am going to do that. Good grief, Kari had an online poker website tattooed on her forehead for the paltry sum of $10K. I mean are you kidding me? To each his own I guess.

There are other forms of "on body" advertising out there that are much less permanent. I just ran across something called Handvertising. If I understand it correctly, you commit to buy a certain amount of impressions through "handvertising." You send your artwork to HandvertisingUSA and they will make a stamp with your logo or message. "We then give the stamp to our network and it will remain in use until the desired number of “impressions” (hand stamps) is reached" says Mike Brown, CEO of HandvertisingUSA. Apparently, the company has a large network of venues like clubs, bars, fairs, etc that the company has partnered with. Innovative for sure, I would hope the ink lasts longer and looks better than your standard bar stamp.

What have you seen that is new or upcoming forms of advertising? Let me know.

 

Google AdSense is Gone

Since I use Firefox, sometimes I don't see what others are seeing in IE. Yesterday it was brought to my attention that an IE user was seeing a "page can not be found" in some of the AdSense locations. So I dusted off my IE and went in and looked. Yep, sure enough, there it was.

I know that Google will only allow 3 ads per page to display. I have 10 posts showing on the home page and since I had the AdSense code in the header above each post, only the first 3 ads would show. Up until now there has been no effect on the other 7 posts that show up on my home page. Evidently something has changed. The second three posts were showing up with the "page can not be found" error in the header.

So I decided to venture out and take a look at some of my other favorite blogs. I went on over to JohnCow's site and it was doing the same thing in IE. Obviously I am not getting a fraction of the traffic that the Cow is but nonetheless, it looks bad. And that, boys and girls, is why I decided to take the AdSense off. If they get it fixed I will put it back up. It's not like I was making any money from having them anyway. With over 36,000 page views in the last three and a half months, I had only made $5.63. I can't even think of anything clever to say that I would buy with that.

 

Marketing Something Controversial

I was watching the show Mad Men last night, which is a fantastic show by the way. Anyway one of the accounts that Sterling-Cooper (the show's ad agency) services is Lucky Strike Cigarettes. Set in the 1960's, the stigma associated with smoking isn't nearly as bad as it is today. However, there is increasing pressure on the cigarette industry from consumer interest groups. The ad execs at Sterling-Cooper are always challenged to show smoking in a favorable light despite public and government pressure.

This type of scenario plays itself out in the real world as well. Often times you are challenged with marketing something that may be unpopular or controversial according to public opinion. However since society has moved toward an accepting and liberal view point, public opinion says that just about everything is acceptable. Given this shift, it's not hard to find someone to market for you. In a post a couple of days ago, I kind of went off the deep end and vented a little bit, but what transpired resulting in that post is exactly what I am talking about. In the 60's if you wanted to promote tobacco it was OK, but to promote an alternate lifestyle, that would be unheard of. Today, if you are on board with the crowd like those that would attend the Folsom Street Fair, it is almost seen as fashionable, but you better not smoke. As a marketer the choices you make about who you represent can effect others.

It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to represent something controversial and how your other clients are going to react. I personally, will always error on the conservative side. On several occasions I have turned down work, that would be extremely profitable, due to it's controversial nature but I am convicted in that way.

What's your thoughts? All money is green and make it how you can or are you selective on the work that you choose to do?

 

What Our Society Has Sunk To

I don't even know what to say.

The Mockery of The Last Supper.

And there's Miller Lite at the head of the line. Kudos to you Miller Brewing Company.

Sad, simply sad.

 

Television Commercials done right.

Hello Gang! It's my birthday today and I was thinking about taking the day off, laying on my couch and watching some TV. Then I came to my senses.

I have quite a collection of RSS feeds coming into my Google Desktop and a headline caught my interest a while back and I decided to save the post. It was on Charlie Cook's blog. The post was called "7 Reasons Most Video Commercials are a Waste of Money..." He has some very valid points but I think in order better understand TV's effectiveness you have to point out the differences between the types of commercials and the solution for poor creative.

His seven reasons for TV commercials being a waste of money are right on and can all be tied to creative. If you haven't heard it before, I'll say it again - Creative is key. Properly written, designed and executed ads that get the information across in a clever manner are better retained by a viewer.

I think, to better understand the effectiveness of a TV ad, you need break TV commercials down into 3 categories. Understanding that each category has a different delivery style, they all need to start with a good creative foundation to better convey the message

1. Toma ads.

2. Event/promotion based ads.

3. PSA type ads.

Each type of ad has a completely unique message and production needs to understand the specific delivery requirements for each type of spot.

Toma or Top-of-mind awareness ads are commonly the most creative. Developing these type of spots, a creative director, copy writer and a producer can have the most fun. You're not being pressed to get a bunch of time sensitive and/or price point information into 30 seconds. This gives you more time to send your message is a manner that will grab a viewers attention. Since this type of spot usually has a longer "shelf life" you can dedicate more time to production and concepting.

With event or promotion spots you are required to cram sale dates, calls to action, price points, specials and other need-to-know information into a short amount of time. A higher level of creative is often sacrificed to include the necessary promotional information. However, this doesn't mean that production quality has to suffer. Obviously this type of commercial isn't on air very long, but done right it will do its job and drive traffic.

PSA type spots typically deliver a soft sell and heart felt message. Creative for this type of commercial manifests itself in quality production. Properly written copy coupled with compelling visual is the key to success when producing these type of ads.

Properly executed creative needs to be done right. Think it through. Hire a competent creative director, copy writer and production crew. It may cost a little more than having a local network affiliate produce your commercial, but in the long run, you will get a better product.

 

Are People Ignoring Online Ads?

Banner Blindness - A term that refers to web users and how they ignore online ads. According to Jacob Nielson's August 20th Alertbox, eye tracking studies reveal that most online user never look anything that appears to be an ad. Even if it's not an ad, if it looks like an ad, users will still ignore it.

"At all levels of user engagement, the finding is the same regarding banners: ...almost no fixations within advertisements. If users are looking for a quick fact, they want to get done and aren't diverted by banners; and if users are engrossed in a story, they're not going to look away from the content."

What is an online advertiser to do? Eye tracking studies indicate that there are 3 things that will divert people's attention from content.

1. Plain Text
2. Faces
3. Cleavage and other "private" body parts.

These top 3 formats, especially #3 may not be applicable to your site. However there is a 4th format that Jakob calls an "unethical path to ad fixations." If you make your ad look like content, it will attract attention.

• "The more an ad looks like a native site component, the more users will look at it.
• Not only should the ad look like the site's other design elements, it should appear to be part of the specific page section in which it's displayed."

Keep in mind the cautionary lesson to be learned here. If you trick your readers into clicking on an ad they think is content, they aren't going to be very happy with you and may begin looking elsewhere.

How can we use this information to make a better online ad? You need to beware of fancy formatting. Big words, bold colors and text design all make content look like promotion and ends up getting ignored. Nielsen did a study where a number of people were given question that could be answered by looking at a website. The answer was clearly indicated in big red numbers in the upper right hand corner of the homepage. 86% of the users failed to find the information requested. Even though the section contained the exact information they were looking for, over half of the test subjects saw the information but didn't use it to answer the question. Over 1/3 of the users didn't see the information at all. "The reason? The information resembled a promotion."

I recently conducted an informal survey on a web development forum. The question, "Do you click advertisements on website?" yielded similar results. The majority responded that they seldom click on ads and if they do it has to be extremely relevant to what they are looking for.

Bottom line?

• Use clean design with little or no fluff.
  
• Focus on the user's needs and why they are visiting the website you are advertising on. In other words, advertise on a site relevant to your service offerings.
  
• Make sure the user knows exactly what's going to happen when they click on your ad.
• Provide some real value when they click on your ad.
• Have a properly formatted landing page with a call to action to maximize conversions.
• Don't trick users.

As online advertising continues it's record setting climb, it becomes more important to refine the way we advertise. Internet information seekers are becoming more savvy and are less affected by online ads compared to 6 years ago. Remember, keep your ads clean, useful and honest. If you follow these simple guidelines you will be able to maximize your ad's effectiveness.

I am curious what you think. Do you click on ads or sponsored listings when browsing? In your opinion, what is the most annoying thing about online ads?

Let me know your thoughts.


Other interesting reading on the subject:

• Firefox users ignore online ads
  

 

Who Should Build Your Website?

I took Friday off and went to God's country in northern Wisconsin to unplug and unwind. This is a picture taken from the deck of the place we went to. I just love it up there!

Anyway, I took some friends with me and, inevitably, the topic of websites came up. One of my friends said, "I am thinking about getting started on a website." We talked about cost, hosting, cost, content, cost, and a mess of other things including why it costs so much to get a "good" website. Obviously he kept getting hung up on the costs. Knowing him like I do, he will find "some guy that knows someone, that works out of his basement, that can do a site for cheap"

I can't tell you how often I have heard someone say, "I know this college kid that is going to build me a website for $500.00, OR I think I'm going to build my own site on Yahoo. At that point, I am torn between saying "Go for it" and educating them about the street called, "Colossal Mistake Ave."

Not building a site with a free or templated service is pretty much common sense to those of us in the business. Dawud Miracle has a pretty good post about owning your own website.

OK fine, so a 20 year old kid in college may know how to code or build a web site using a one of the many WYSIWYG editors available today, but what does he know about business in general or about marketing your company?

Can he or she write the site content? Creating compelling copy that sells your products is essential to online success.

The only reason I bring this up is that we are in the process of building a website for a company that has done the $600 build TWICE now. The worst thing about their last 2 versions was, even if you knew the name of the company, you couldn't find it through a search. Both times the site was built by the lowest bidding college kid that knew a little flash, some html and thought that Front Page was the greatest thing since the invention of "beer pong".

Just remember, good design, good content and forward market thinking is what contributes to the success of your site. Pony up the dough and get your site done right, the first time. The sweetness of the low price is long forgotten when the bitterness of no results is realized.

 

Viral Marketing Part 3

I "Stumbled Upon" this image somewhere out in cyberspace. How funny is this?

My recent posts Viral Marketing-Part 1 and Viral Marketing-Part 2 talk about the impact that this type of marketing has on the way information is spread. Then a report came out from Jupiter Research saying how viral marketing is not working anymore. So miserable were the reported results of targeted viral campaigns that "only 15% of viral campaigns in the past year achieved the goal of prompting consumers to promote the marketer's message."

The report laid out the demographics most likely to spread messages, the impact of social media, and a host of other factors that contribute to viral marketing and why it isn't working.

HOLD ON A MINUTE HERE!

This isn't what viral marketing is all about. Viral marketing happens all on it's own. You can't force it. Like Seth Godin says: "True viral marketing happens not when the marketer plans for it or targets bloggers or skateboarders or pirates with goatees, but when the item/service/event is worth talking about." AND, it's going to happen whether you want it to or not. South Carolina's Miss Teen contestant is a prime example with over 14 million views during the past several weeks. Given that kind of exposure, I'm sure she's wanting a "do-over." There was no marketing, no strategic planning, it just happened and people spread the message.

But these are the consequences of something that goes "viral." Those who know the story behind the "Star Wars Kid" understand what I am talking about.

Don't try and take shortcuts in marketing. Market to people that are listening and are fans of your product or service. Make you message extraordinary and people will listen. Identify what you do and your unique selling point and you will do more good than trying to force people to talk about you.