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.

 

Online Money Making Secrets

Here's the information that you have been waiting for. I ran across this on YouTube. I tried it out and guess what. I made $1000 in less than 4 hours. There are some tweaks that you can do that will allow you to get the money in faster but 4 hours was OK for me.



Seriously, give it a shot, else do you have to loose. Share the love!

 

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.

 

Using Non Domain Based Emails For Business

Here's my opinion. You want to hear it because I know everything, right? Not really, but I do have some strong feelings on this subject. Very similar to my feelings on printing your own business cards on the perforated Avery stock and using an ink jet printer.

IF you have a business, AND you have a website and your own domain, you should NOT be using a Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL or other free email service. I don't care if you have had your email address, mycoolcamaro49@hotmail.com for 15 years, DON'T use it when corresponding professionally with clients. This chips away at your legitimacy. Take an extra 10 minutes and set up an email address through your control panel or have your hosting company do it for you if you don't know how.

All I know is that if you send me an email from sirpimpsalot@aol.com and expect me to buy something from your company, you have already lost my business. (unless of course you are selling pimp hats.)

So tell me what do YOU think on the subject.

 

SiteHoppin BABY!!

There are a few sites on the internet that I try and stop by every day. Gorilla Sushi, A Strange Life and Blogsters Guild just to name a few. Mostly because I want to see what they are going to say next. If you have ever seen the movie about Howard Stern called "Private Parts", according to the NBC executive in the movie, the reason for his ratings being so high was that "people wanted to see what he would say next."

This is exactly why I stop by the SiteHoppin blog. When I first ran across this blog, I thought to myself, good grief, this is the most annoying thing I have ever laid my eyes on. But you see, in the beginning, I simply didn't get it.

Well, I get it now and I have to tell you, it IS hilarious. At first I thought that it was going to be like the train wreck Anna Nicole Smith Show. Seriously, I HATED that show, but for some reason I couldn't keep my eyes off of it. If I was flipping the channels and it was on, some unknown force would compel me to stop and stare at the screen. I would get so mad at that show. How could someone so stupid have their own show? Why are people watching this? Are people like me or do they find this entertaining? I would complain how Hollywood will exploit anything. After about 15 minutes of ranting my wife would usually come in and say in calm voice, "why do you watch it?" or "just turn the channel." Yeah right, she didn't know anything.

So here I am on the SiteHoppin Blog. There's this crazy cat named Max who makes videos of himself in his kitchen drinking SOJU and Mickey's. Mostly he rambles about SiteHoppin, getting drunk, site stats, cooking, drinking, and what ever comes to mind. Oh did I mention getting drunk?

As of this post, the most recent episode informs us of his quest for knowledge in the Java and Ajax world. He also lets it slip that he is broke because of recent server upgrades. I kind of feel bad for Max, given his recent bout in the hospital. I may send him some cash, but I don't know, we will have to see. I am still trying to figure out if he really is broke or this whole thing is a well orchestrated production. Nonetheless, it is entertaining AND I am compelled to check back every day. I may even go out and locate some SOJU to make my own video and send it to max.

Actually there's more to SiteHoppin than just the crazy blog. It is a new kind of social bookmarking site. It is reminiscent of StumbleUpon in the sense that you can "hop" to a random website and if you like it you can vote on it. However it is more than a simple thumbs up or down. You get to vote on the page in the form of beers. Yes, beers! You can rank the page from 1 to 5 beers, tag it, comment on it and then move on. Here are a couple of my pages that I have submitted, if you feel so inclined head on over and rank me. But more importantly, try out SiteHoppin and let me know what think. Granted, this site is in it's infancy and I think that Max has some tweaks to perform that will make it better but I think it is a good start.

 

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!

 

The Sears Story

I have been seeing a LOT of articles online about how terrible the customer service is at BestBuy and Sears. I had an ever so small outburst about Sears' customer service in a post about purchasing from local businesses. In the comments section, Al wanted to hear more about the "Sears Incident."

Without further adieu, I give you The Sears Story.

I am going to try and condense this down as much as possible. A few years back, I decided I needed a new vacuum. Because of that need, I went to Sears and after some brief discussion with the sales person about the various models and the FAB's of each one, we settled on a Kenmore vacuum, we will call it vacuum model POS V1. This vacuum lasts about 2 years before it stopped working. Out of warranty, we figured it was just a cheap vacuum. I believe it was only about $200. Please understand that I am not using it as a shop vac or processing gravel with it. Normal household vacuuming is all it is used for. I liked the vacuum well enough and so I decided to get another one just like it. I thought a vacuum should last for more that 2 years but hey, what do I know.

So we (my wife and I) go back to Sears and purchased the same thing. 6 months into the vacuum (model POS V2), it starts shutting down after about 10 min. of vacuuming. I waited another 5.99999999 months to take it in. It was simply to low on my priority list. By the time the repair center (somewhere in BFE) actually gets the unit, it is 2 days out of warranty. (They stopped doing local repairs quite some time ago.) They said that they can't fix it under warranty and it will cost $135.00.

Hold on a minute there cowboy. I said, "When I brought it into the store it was still under warranty." Apparently THAT didn't matter. It matters when they go to make the repair. But here is the kicker. As I was talking with the manager's manager, he was reading the notes out loud on the phone to me and said that they can't get it to duplicate the problem. (Keep this in mind for later)

Come to find out that they had already put a new motor in it and were trying to sell it to me before they were going to ship it back. This was before I found out that the tech wrote a note about not being able to find the problem. After calmly talking to the service center's manager's manager it became apparent that they weren't going to do anything for me under warranty. In a fit of rage, I told them to put the old (expletive deleted) motor back in and ship the (expletive deleted) thing back to me. And in a very unkind manner I explained to them that they would never get another dime of my money again.

The next week I get an automated phone call on my answering machine saying that I have a "repaired" product ready for pickup. Repaired?!?! Oh yes, the story gets better. Not only is the vacuum NOT repaired it is in a worse state than when I sent it in. The vacuum comes back and it has another motor in it that doesn't even work. So now, I can't even use it at all. Remember before it would at least run for 10 minutes and then shut off, but now, NOTHING.

Keep in mind this was a time consuming ordeal for me that lasted about a 2 weeks. I WAS going to go back around with them, simply on a matter of principle, but I then realized that MY time is worth more than the entire Sears service department. Pick your battles, I guess.

Here's what I ended up doing. I just decided to take them BOTH (models POS V1 & V2) to the Sears vacuum department and drop them off. The manager came out and asked what the problem was and I replied, "No problem at all, here are the 2 junk vacuums (obviously in like new condition) that I bought from you and you can have them back. This has been a valuable learning experience for me. I will never buy anything from this store or your company again." I walked out with them all staring at me in silence. Not the justice that I was looking for but it made me feel good I guess. Word of warning. DO NOT buy ANYTHING from SEARS. They SUCK. Thats right, SEARS SUCKS. (linkbait)

So why didn't I go back and do a second round of battle? Because I now tell everyone I know about how Sears customer service sucks and that they should NEVER buy anything from Sears unless it is a Craftsman hand tool. AND I have this platform to spread the message.

On a side note, I don't get real excited about vacuums but I have to tell you that I AM excited about the vacuum I have now. I have a Dyson. This piece of machinery is an amazing work of technological art. I have never had nor seen a vacuum perform like the Dyson. If you have the means, I HIGHLY recommend that you pick one up.

Ok this LONG post is done. If you made it this far, thanks. Let me know about your experiences.

 

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?

 

Late News For The Week. It's Official - Digg Is For Sale

I know that this is pretty old news but I just read that Digg is for sale for $300 million dollars.

"A reliable source just confirmed the company’s plans, noting the company has hired Allen & Company, a tiny but influential private investment firm, to help broker a deal. The asking price is still $300 million, the source said." Wow, $300 million. I wonder if they'll take a check?

"When asked about a potential sale, Digg founder Kevin Rose said that “we never comment on things related to acquisitions.”

Awww shucks, can't he give us a little something?

All I know is that I have way better luck with traffic from Stumbleupon. Digg has never really generated anything substantial. With any social media, the big challenge is converting that traffic into RSS subscribers or ad clickers, what ever your goal is. I have had moderate luck getting RSS conversions from SU traffic. However this month I have increased my RSS subs by about 70 so far but that was due primarily to the contest which ends on the 4th. And because it is going so well I am going to give an un-announced bonus when the winner is drawn.

I am curious, what social media is your biggest generator of traffic?

 

Customer Service IS Marketing

Back in September I wrote a post on the level of customer service that I had to endure during an encounter with our fine U.S. Postal Service. Customer service is something that I am always looking for, good or bad. I want to make sure that the good is rewarded and I take lessons from the bad.

What is good customer service though? Is it outsourcing your technical help line to an Indian company where they can barely speak English? Does great customer service mandate that you have a very long and complicated auto attendant on your phone system? I think not.

I can't tell you how many times I have been on hold for over a half hour with my home ISP and the on hold message is saying, and I'm not kidding here - "If you are experiencing problems with your internet please go to www..." By the time you actually get to speak to a live person, you are much more irritated than when you first dialed the support line number. To make matters worse, the poor, unfortunate soul that gets the daunting privilege of assisting you, ends up with both barrels.

In my continuing quest to educate myself and try as I might to improve my own customer service skills, I ran across a BRILLIANT article on the very subject over at the aptly named Daily Brilliance.

Allow me to hit the high points for you.

• Tell your customers when there is a problem: Don't wait for them to call you and wonder what is going on. It's all about being proactive.
• Don't have automated phone systems if you can help it.
• Don't lie to your customers. This goes back to sales 101. Tell them the truth, if you don't know, say; "I don't know but I will find out for you." This will eliminate the "over promise and under deliver" problem that commonly plagues sales people.
  
• If you are going to sell something new, make sure your employees know about it and are at least slightly trained on the subject. I can't tell you how many times I have gone into a store and I know more about the item in question than the sales person. If you don't know about the product go find someone who does. NEVER FORGET, consumers are WAY MORE educated these days by the time they walk into your store. People do use the internet for something other than email and funny videos.
• This is MY FAVORITE! "Do Not Allow People That Do Not Speak English Out With The Customers." If you are going to sell me something, especially here in the Midwest, make sure you can sell it to me in English. I don't care if it is a Whopper with cheese or a 52 inch plasma, you need to be able to speak the official language of my country in order to sell it to me.
• Make sure you wait on customers. If I walk into a store and I have waited 15 minutes for help while the employees are all huddled together discussing the rave that they attended last night, I am walking out. Greet your customer, thank them for the business and say good bye as they leave.
  
• If you outsource, does your customer service suffer? You had better make sure it doesn't. The author states that he encourages people to purchase PC from somewhere other than Dell "...due to the quality of customer support I’ve received through their call center in India. I have nothing against Indian people but I do have a problem dealing with customer support when I cannot understand them."
• Treat each customer on their own merit. Don't punish all customers for the actions of the few. Instead of assuming that all customers are stealing from you, look at each customer as your neighbor or friend and talk to him or her in such a way that is both welcoming and trusting.

Here are a few other obvious sentiments from the article. "The best customer is the return customer, Every Business Should Have Clean Restrooms and what one would assume is obvious, remain open during the hours on your sign." This is a very brief summary of the entire article. Make sure you head over and check out the article in it's entirety. Bottom line, treat your customers the best you can. After all, they are the reason you are in business.

If you are still with me, (I know this is a long post) I do have one final illustration and then I want to hear from you. The other night I was at Red Lobster for some mediocre seafood enjoyment. Normally, they have outstanding customer service but for some reason our server was either having a bad night or really didn't care. We were seated right away but shortly afterwards our server brought us the wrong drinks. I informed her of the mistake and she took it away never to return with a replacement.

She served us appetizers, salads and the main course, the whole time forgetting to bring me anything to drink. But here's where you say, "didn't you reminder her?" Yes, of course I did. As a matter of fact, I reminded her 2 additional times that I didn't have anything to drink. In the end, I ate my entire meal with nothing to drink. I had to grab my wifes water a couple of times to wash down the cheesy garlic and herb biscuits, you know the ones I am talking about! Mmmmmmmm. Anyway, here's the question. Do you tip or not?

Tipping is a big debate with some of my friends. Maybe this is the bigger question that I need answered. Is tipping based on the level of service you receive or is it just part of the cost of going out. Do you think that people should get tipped even if they provide horrible service? I have been on both the tipper and the "tippee" and my thoughts are much different than some of my friends. Let me know what you think.

 

Because Everyone Is Talking About It Anyway

Just about every blog that I read lately is talking about Entrecard. OK FINE.

Yes I signed up, yes I am getting a bunch of traffic from it, yes I have met some really cool people because of it and yes it is worth your time and energy.

Since everyone else is doing it and my draft menu is getting a little low, I too am going to write a glowing review about Entrecard!

Here is what you do. You sign up and upload the image you want for your business card. Once that is done, you have to put the Entrecard widget on your site. From there, any site you visit with the Entrecard widget, you will be able to drop your card. This results in your card showing up in the widget owner's control panel.

There are 2 ways get traffic from Entrecard. Once when other EC users click on your card in their dashboard and two, when people click on the 125 x 125 ad on a site that you are advertising on.

There is a cost for advertising on someone else's site. However you pay with your Entrecard Credits. These credits are earned when someone advertises on your site OR when you drop a card on someone else's widget.

Not that it's any real big deal, well actually it kind of is for me since I am a big fan, but guess who is wants to advertise on The Big Bald Blog? John Chow! Here is a screen shot of his card in my pending file, and yes I approved it.



Bottom line? This is the single most effective (and fun) thing I have participated in that brings traffic in. Some have even started blog contests that are offering Entrecard Credits to the winners.

I have nabbed the RSS feeds from blogs like Sly Bald Guys, Gorilla Sushi, Caveman Conclusion, Marketing Deviant, CK Marketing, Cigar Jack and many others because of it. If you have a blog, head on over and check it out. It's definitely worth doing!

On a side note, I am still seeing BlogRush widgets all over the place, is anyone getting any traffic from that? I know I'm not.

 

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.

 

What's Behind Your Brand?

Contributed by Guest Blogger
Clare Price. Clare is a branding
expert who owns a California based
company called BrandVantage

"It's inevitable. Whenever I speak on branding, someone brings up cattle ranches and branding irons. Ouch! That hurts! Everybody laughs. But there is more to this analogy than meets the eye.

It's a well known fact that we as consumers "brand" ourselves with products from our favorite companies--companies like Starbucks, Ralph Lauren Polo and Coach purses. But it's what's behind that logo that really counts.

Cattle branding had two purposes in the Old West. First, the brand on the cattle identified the owner. You knew at a glance which steers belonged to you. Secondly, it identified the ranch. The size, importance and power of the ranch came from the size and quantity of its herd. Big ranch equaled big important brand. Little ranch equaled little brand. The respect that the cattle ranching community gave the brand came not from the brand symbol on the steer but from the size and power of the ranch behind it.

So what's behind your brand? What is the true size and power of your "ranch." Today when we talk about brand power, we mean brand equity. Your brand is your company's most important asset. Your brand is not just a logo or image; it is a capital asset with real net worth and financial power you can bank on. Brands have equity.

Brand equity is created by your company's ability to change market and customer perception into profits. To tap this brand equity, you must first understand what those perceptions are and how to harness their power so you can use your equity as capital to build your business.

Brand equity is measurable across five dimensions: Value and perceived quality of your product or service; market and customer awareness of your company, product or service; customer loyalty to your brand; market positioning, and competitive advantage...

For now, take a few minutes to think about how your company, product or service stacks up in each of these areas. Rate the following from 1-10 (10 high) for your business today:

1. Quality—How good are your products/services compared to:
   - Your ideal
   - Your competitors
2. Perceived value—How well do your customers value your product or service?
3. Loyalty—How strong is your customer's connection to your product or service?
4. Market recognition—How well known are you known in your product/service category?
5. Visibility—How much of your target market knows about you?
6. Image—How well does the average customer think of you?
7. Leadership—How much of the available market share have you captured?"

Thanks for the article Clare!

 

I Am Jack's Raging Sense Of Design

As I was making my daily blog rounds, a headline on Seth's blog caught my eye. How to create a great website is what lured me over. I took particular interest in #8, #7 and #1.

"If you hire a professional: hire a great one. The best one. Let her do her job. 10 mediocre website consultants working in perfect harmony can’t do the work of one rock star." How hard are these rock stars to find? This is one area that is particularly difficult right now. But, once you get this person make sure you hang on to them.

"Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a deal breaker." Design by committee has never worked. One person needs to make the decisions and live with them. Just like when you are designing a logo - there is only one person that needs to be making a decision. If you have 15 people on a design committee, you are going to have 15 different opinions and nothing will ever get accomplished.

Insight is good, clever is bad. Many websites say, “look at me.” Your goal ought to be to say, “here’s what you were looking for.” I couldn't have said it better. After all, isn't this the goal of any website. Properly constructing a site to give searchers the answers to their questions and the information that they are looking for is the key to success. So often this gets overlooked in the rush to make a site look good.

Great Post Seth!

 

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?

 

I Don't Have Any Thing More To Say - Not Really

As I am sitting here with a glazed over look and staring blankly at my computer screen, I can't remember what I was going to write about. I had a great idea last night but, for the life of me, I can't remember it. Then I got to thinking about a post over at ProBloggersMatrix called "How do you come up with all those inspiring ideas for your blog?" I went and re-read that post again and you know what?!? It didn't help. So there you have it. Today is the first time I don't have something witty, semi-insightful or remotely useful to throw your direction.

What I do know, that for the first time since it's inception, The Big Bald Blog has hit over 1200 unique visitors for the month so far and our RSS subscribers continue to grow.

Over the past 4 or 5 months, I have continued to play with the format, the monetization, and other miscellaneous little things in an attempt to make a better blog. In the last month or so, I have also come to the conclusion that, for me, the Blogger platform has run it's course. It was a great start for someone like me who didn't have a clue about starting a blog. However, the big "WP" has so much more to offer. So, once I decide on a theme, I will be making the transition over to WordPress. Other inevitable changes are coming down the pipe, including a domain change. I have always known the importance of branding your blog and when I read a post about the same subject over at John Chow's site, it just sank a little deeper. I have www.TheBigBaldBlog.com registered and will working on the new theme over the next several months. I am not going to make any promises on a launch date or anything, but after having seen John Cow's new theme, I've become inspired.

Well, that's about it. If you have any interesting topics for discussion or would like to write an article for The Big Bald Blog, drop me a line at, the big bald blog at impactmt dot com. Now I feel like Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs with his plug for content at the end of every show.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

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.

 

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 messa