Top 10 Internet-Advertising Websites - and other neat charts

The team over at MarketingCharts.com continues to provide good information.

Top 10 Google Advertisers - April 2009
Top 10 Internet-Advertising Websites - May 2009
Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate - April 2009

and ... my favorite:
Best and Worst US Cities for Hair

Viral Video Chart - Top 20 Viral Videos

Want to have some fun wasting some time? You have to check out the latest top 20 viral videos, as compiled by Unruly Media.

Why waste any more time here ... check out today's Top 20.

The coming death of Facebook

Do you "Facebook"? CTV.ca reported recently on "Death by boredom -- the slow demise of Facebook." I get this. How many times do you need to know that your buddy is eating chips, watching bad TV, or countless other tidbits of personal hygiene that people post as updates?

Most of us who are on Facebook went on there to find out about friends from the past (and maybe more to the point, significant others like girlfriends). Once the thrill of that is gone, you don't have much left.

Something will eclipse the Facebook fad at some point in the not too distant future ... and we'll all be back on there too.

For marketers the point is that you shouldn't blow your entire marketing budget on something like Facebook, and you definitely shouldn't look to it as a long-term strategy. It can make up a piece of your advertising strategy for now. But that's all.

Did you know that March 14th is "Pi Day"

Think about it ...

• March the 14th is the 3rd month and 14th day (3.14)
• Pi is that mythical number associated with circles 3.14159265 ... (typically referred to simply as 3.14).

March 14th also just happens to be Einstein's birthday (coincidence ... I think not!).
Apparently the big celebration is officially at 1:59 in the afternoon. Shouldn't it be 1:59 in the morning on March 14th? That might be better, then the party could start on the 13th!

Why is this interesting to the average web marketer? Well - take a look at Google's heat meter on the hot-ness of queries for "Pi Facts". It's on fire!
(That's as of about 1opm mountain time on March 12th, 2009. There are still 2 days to go.)

And, that's not the only "pi" term that is burning up the Google rankings:

• "Pi Facts" are currently#7
• "Pi Jokes" are #13
• "Pi Digits" are #15
  
• "Pi Poems" are #16
• "History of Pi" is #19
• ... and so on!

Google "Pi Facts", and the rest of those terms. You'll find that virtually no one is bidding on those terms. I'd buy them up over the next 2 days if I sold:

• PCs
• Pies
• Educational Supplies (like those giant wooden compasses they used when I was in Grade 6 ... do they still use those?)
  
• Party Supplies
• ... I'm sure there are more great ideas!

Sticking with the concept, I wonder what other "trivial" days there are out there that would be a fun opportunity to win with relevant and cheap search engine marketing?

(Here's a link in case you want more information about Pi Day.)

What should TV do to save itself?

The PVR will kill TV advertising, so how can TV save itself?

I have a few ideas. If I were making a TV ad for the "PVR generation", I'd:

• Sight hooks - Perhaps an ad solely for PVR people shot in slow-mo, but with signs held by the actors, an introduction pop-out saying "PVR tuned ad from ". In my mind's eye I keep thinking of those kids books where you flip the corner of the page and create a movie. You could do the same thing for a PVR ad, by showing ten frames, each held for 3 seconds. Watched at regular speed it would look odd. Watched at PVR fast-forward, it would suddenly come to life.
  
• Silent ads - Why waste the sound. Plus, a silent ad will attract the attention of a viewer who is watching the ad in real time. With the appropriate pop-outs during that ad, there will be a touch of appealing humor. To that end, you could have sound that is totally out of synch with the pictures. There would be a double joke here. The script could be along the lines of "Thanks for listening to this ad. Since you are actually paying attention and listening to us -- unlike the people fast forwarding through this ad with their PVR -- we thought we'd give you a bit extra ..." The copy would offer "more" of something. Perhaps a tip on life, or an incentive to buy (e.g. "tell your sales person you heard this ad to get an extra 10% off".
  
• In-show Ticker overlay or Corner Pop-outs - People aren't going to speed through the show. If your ad shows up at the top or bottom during the show, then you can be sure people will see it. If you had a text ad scrolling by like a ticker randomly during the show, and featuring a company's URL I bet people would be more likely than ever to hit their computer and have a look at your ad.
• Brand Centric - The brand name should be displayed throughout the ad, and should be featured large. Even filling a full 1/4 of the screen the whole time. Maybe another 1/4 of the screen should have bullet-point copy about the purpose and benefits of the product.

Minority Report is here (Almost)

Did you ever see Minority Report, with Tom Cruise? I have always found the advertising in that movie fascinating because the concept is that all of the ads in any media - be they newspaper or out-of-home digital boards - change for you. That's right. The ad that you walk past in the mall is targeted at you personally. The concept is based on the idea that each media scans your retinas and can identify you, and is smart enough to advertise to you.

Online advertising has gotten close to that with Behavioral Targeting through Advertising Networks (like Advertising.com and Casale). The premise on which these networks operate is that they are able to watch the sites that a computer is browsing. Based on that, they can determine the types of things the person who is surfing is interested in. For instance, let's say that you are surfing automobile sites, and let's say that you tend to look at mini-van information. Suddenly through simple tracking mechanisms the advertising networks can determine that you are probably interested in a mini-van. So, if one of their Advertisers is trying to advertise their particular mini-van, you suddenly find that a lot of the advertising space on the internet (i.e. lots of inventory that the particular Network has purchased) seems to be educating you about that particular mini-van. It is magic.

Well - hang onto your eyeballs - now it looks like Out-of-Home Digital Video Boards may have that similar capabilities being built into them. The Globe and Mail reported today that small cameras can now be embedded in the screen of a small digital video board and can track who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity – and can change the ads accordingly. In practice however, it looks like for the near term if the system can simply determine the gender the system will be doing very well.

That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

And even if the ads don't shift based on which people are watching, the technology's ability to determine the viewers' demographics is golden for advertisers who want to know how effectively they're reaching their target audience.

While the technology remains in limited use for now, advertising industry analysts say it is finally beginning to live up to its promise. The manufacturers say their systems can accurately determine gender 85 to 90 per cent of the time, while accuracy for the other measures continues to be refined.

Leaders in the field appear to be:

• TruMedia Technologies Inc., Florida
  
• Quividi, France
• Studio IMC Inc., New York

How big is the web?

Want to expand your worldwide marketing reach? You better be marketing on the web!

comScore has just announced that the Global Internet Audience has just surpassed 1 billion Visitors. ONE BILLION. That's a big number.

That number includes people 15 and over who accessed the internet from home or work in December 2008.

1 billion definitely is a big number. But a bigger number is the world's population at 6.756 billion people. Many of the 5.756 billion people who don't currently have access to the internet are in developing countries, and don't have access to fancy computers or high-speed connections. However, watch for many more people to come online in 2009 as the internet continues its trek into hand-held devices with wireless access (including cell-phones, PDAs, and the new cheap netbooks.

If I were to bet an advertising dollar on where to place ads, I'd look at the most popular web properties, which include:

• Google Sites, visited by 77% of the total internet audience
  
• Microsoft Sites, 64%
• Yahoo! Sites, 56%

Additionally, I'd look to some of the top entities that support online advertising. Among those, I've worked with that I've had very good results from:

• Google (duh ... almost everyone should have this as their #1)
  
• ValueClick Networks
• Tribal Fusion
• 24/7 Real Media (which I believe recently changed some of its services over to the Outrider brand)
  
• Casale Media (my experience is that these are great people to work with!)
  
• Burst Media

Want some help planning or tuning your own Online Marketing for those 1 billion surfers who you are hoping find you? Contact Market GoGo now to get started.

The changing face of an Advertising Professional

Not that long ago, an Advertising Professional might have come directly from an Art School or a Communication Program, and worked their way up through the ranks. Those ranks were either in:

• the Publishing industry as a content creator (e.g. a broadcaster, photographer, cameraman, cinematographer, writer, editor, etc.),
  
• a Marketing Department as an Advertiser (e.g. a coordinator, manager, etc.), or
  
• at an Advertising Agency in the production and buying of advertising (e.g. copy writer, creative, creative director, account director, buyer, etc.).

But as the Advertising world shifts from a traditional media world to an online interactive world, new skills are necessary. Those skills are coming from the Systems Integration world. New skills that are necessary include:

• Technology-Savvy Creatives - People who really understand what can be done with a given technology and how to make it "sing"
  
• Business Analysts - To help define what is being built, how it should behave, and the desired outcomes
• Architects - Technical Analysts - Including Design Engineers and Architects who will lay the physical framework for the new system including security, volume-performance, database table structure, and other design elements
• Developers - To actually put the application together - be it an interactive ad or a web-site
  
• Test Analysts - To create and execute a test plan that will ensure the application works
• Project Managers - To keep the team and the work on track and mitigate risks to budget, scope, or delivery time.

Marketing is changing. Jump aboard for the ride.

What is Market GoGo?

Market GoGo is a specialized Marketing Consultancy, based in Calgary. Market GoGo focuses on a few things that will help you to make your company more successful. Those things are strategic in nature, and focus on things that many companies just don't have the experience or the depth to do. Those things are:

• Brand Audit: A review of the "personality" of your company or a particular "brand" your company represents. It covers a wide swath of customer interactions and experiences with your brand from brand standards (signage, lettering, colors, etc.), to advertising, to customer service representatives, to your website, to your positioning statement, and so on. The goal of a Brand Audit is to help you understand your brand's assets and customer perceptions and subsequently to make decision and changes that will ultimately help you to drive more sales.
• Web Marketing and Advertising strategies: Web Marketing is all about doing five things as part of your Web Portfolio: Get prospective customers to your website, Convert prospects to customers, Up-sell and cross-sell to customers, Provide online service to customers, and Get customers to come back to buy from you again. This portfolio runs the gamut from bidding on Google text ads, to banner ads served by Advertising Networks, to mapping the web sales process flow, to researching customer behaviour on your website through analytics and customer research, to opt-in email marketing, and on, and on, and on!
• Project Management of your Strategic Marketing Projects: Marketing Project Management ensures that projects are delivered on-time and on-scope by the "delivery partner" (e.g. an IT Development Team or a Product Development Team). The Marketing Project Plan also ensures that the Marketing specific tasks - such as Communication and Advertising - are put in place at the right time.
• RFP Response for your B2B opportunity: Writing an RFP response is an arduous task. It is also one that you may not get to do enough, and consequently you aren't practiced in crafting a great response that will catch the attention of the team that both crafted the RFP and will review your response. Your response should get you noticed, and get you to the "next step" in the negotiating process.
• Aligning your Contact Center's Behavior with your brand: Most Contact Centers or Call Centers focus on technologies and practices that will drive cost-cutting through their business. For example, the use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems has been lauded by the Call Center industry as a great way to cut costs. But just find a customer who REALLY likes dealing with an IVR. Wouldn't you like your Call Centre's behavior and technology to provide the appropriate brand experience that your customers expect? That's the goal of Market GoGo's Contact Centre Strategy Approach.

Contact Market GoGo to find out more about how we can help you with your Branding and Marketing.

Trends for 2009: #8. Online Advertising will Continue to Grow

As Marketers (perhaps like you) struggle with a tightened budget and getting the best bang for your buck, it will be time for Advertisers to look more closely at the multitude of advertising media that is part of Online Advertising. Consequently, online advertising will grow in 2009. In contrast, almost all other media will shrink dramatically.

During the Great Depression, the "new media" of radio took off. In fact, in every recession since then Radio advertising has fared very well. Expect similar this time around - except in Radio's place, you will see innovations and growth in online advertising.

Now, that said, if you are a Publisher or an Advertising Network it isn't time to start counting your coins yet. While online advertising will grow in 2009, budgets will still be tight, and it may not even grow as much as it did in 2008. Relative to other advertising media however, it will be glowing. Why? Well, the equation might look something like this for an Advertiser:

This Year's advertising budget = Last Year's Budget / 2.
Where do I put that little bit of money?

• Print 2009 = Print 2008 x 1/3
  
• TV 2009 = TV 2008 x 1/2
• Radio 2009 = Radio 2008 x 3/4
  
• Out of Home 2009 = Out of Home 2008 x 2/3
• Online 2009 = Online 2008 x 1.1

Okay ... the math may not make sense, and those numbers are all just a WAG, but the concept stands. Budgets will get cut, and the increase in online spending is going to come at the expense of other media.

What online advertising is going to grow? All of it. Paid search (probably more than the rest), Banner Ads, Video, Online Games and Contests, etc., etc., etc.. Some people are forecasting that this will lead to an overall increase in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Maybe, but maybe not. The content and opportunities on the internet are almost limitless, but there are only a small handfull of really popular sites. The CPM (thousand impressions) or CPC (click) will increase on those sites. But as an Advertiser, if you focus on conversions and use an outlet like an Advertising Network that leverages the power of the long-tail, then you may actually come out with a low and stable CPA.

What's a Marketer to do in 2009?

• Do review your traditional advertising spend VERY closely. What worked? What didn't? What is dubious? Slash and burn anything but that which worked. Figure out how you can build on those things that worked.
  
• Do online advertising. Look at how you can be creative with it. Also, look at how you can integrate with traditional advertising that is working. Similarly, look at how you can integrate it with Direct Marketing opportunities.
• Focus on your Cost Per Acquisition. Use analytics and look at all of your online advertising and its performance (including creative, message, placement, etc.). Use this information to tune your ads and your media buys in order to lower your CPA. To lower your media buys, look at options like bulk buys, advertising networks, or even changing the type or mix of ads you are running entirely (e.g. maybe increase your search spend, and reduce your banner ad spend).
  

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.

Trends for 2009: #6. Paid Search advertising (i.e. Google's revenue) will grow substantially again (i.e. Time to invest in Google?)

Web traffic will continue to climb. Web shoppers will increase in numbers. Web surfers will continue to start their purchase process on a search engine. The search engine of choice will continue to be Google, and in fact their share of the search market will grow dramatically.

Simultaneously ... Marketing budgets will drop. Marketing departments will be under more pressure then ever to draw prospective customers in.

So, what is a Marketer to do? In 2009 Marketers will spend more time than ever before focusing on Search Marketing - both paid and organic. Paid search advertising however is the easiest and quickest way to make things work.

It is likely that paid search advertising costs will actually increase substantially in 2009, as more Marketers bid on common phrases. Nonetheless, a good search strategy is still going to be substantially cheaper, much more effective, and infinitely more measurable than any signficant newspaper ad.

Search Marketing strategies to focus on in 2009:

• Do Paid Search Engine Marketing: Oh, and do it well. Track the ROI of keywords and be sure that you are making your money on every word that you are bidding on.
• Work your copy: A paid search ad is just a simple little bit of text. But, it may be the most powerful 12 to 15 words you ever write. Test, revise, test, revise, and don't stop. Make sure that every bit of copy you put out there on those search ads is on brand and works as well as it possibly can. Additionally, customize copy for each search term you have out there. You should have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of ads floating out there in the ether of the search world.
  
• Create Landing Pages: Every paid search bid should have its own purpose-made landing page with your call to action highlighted. No one should ever click on your paid search ad and end up at your home page (or worse, a 404 error).
• Do Organic Search Engine Optimization: SEO is "free" and having a high organic rank will pay off rapidly - even in places where you are also bidding on a relevant keyword. But, to be honest, SEO isn't free and it isn't a one-time project. SEO requires solid resourcing with people who have a good understanding of what they are doing. It is also a journey not a destination. So, you have to be prepared to continually revisit your SEO and tune your website.

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.

Pelosi Rickroll? What the?

This morning I noticed that the term "pelosi rickroll" was suddenly one of the most searched terms on Google. Why? What does it mean? Let's take a look.

The first article was on Time.com and describes how Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, staff put together a simple prank video (also shown below) with the express intent of creating a viral video that will introduce the Speaker Pelosi to the world. Time wrote about it. I'm writing about it. Thousands of others will write about it and tens or hundreds of thousands ... or perhaps even millions of people will watch it.

This is viral video nearly at its best.

As explained on Time.com:

The Rickroll, an internet meme that started a few years ago, is basically a prank in which unsuspecting viewers are tricked into listening to Rick Astley's 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up". The classic Rickroll is when someone is tricked into clicking on link that takes them to a video of the song.

What a great idea! Kudo's to Pelosi's staff for (a) using the new media at their fingertips, and (b) having a sense of humour!

Maybe this also will become part of Pelosi's (and indeed Obama's) branding: Take the job seriously, but not yourself.

Top 10 Marketing Trends for 2009: #1. Integrated Interactive Campaigns

I'm assuming that I'll get about 10 posts in between now and Dec. 31. So, in that time I'm going to try to list out ten things that I believe will become prevalent marketing / advertising / branding / web practices in 2009. To start things off:

Accelerated Shift from traditional advertising to Integrated Interactive Campaigns
As newspapers continue their slow march towards death, along with other traditional forms of print, and TV's market becomes more fragmented (and consequently less effective), and the economy continues to crater, Marketers are going to be searching out the most efficient advertising media. What is that? Online web advertising is the key. It is measurable (making the Finance department happy), and it works (making the CEO and investors happy). But, let's face it, people still continue to consume massive amounts of media through the TV, print, out-of-home, mobile, and other types of advertising. What is the best way to use these?

1. First off, what is the goal of advertising? To get your prospect to take action and become a customer.
2. Secondly, what is the goal of the campaign? Retail / Convert? Sign-up? Brand awareness?
   

One big trend in 2009 will be Integrated Interactive Online + Traditional Campaigns. I believe that in 2009 campaigns featuring traditional media that will include a call-to-action to participate in interactive campaigns through the web and mobile devices will become a standard way of:

• Allowing prospects to become customers (e.g. participate with us to get your instant coupon),
  
• Getting prospects and customers to sign-up for promotional emails (e.g. sign-up for an instant saving, and also for future savings ... the "flyers" of tomorrow), and
• Building an ongoing relationship with the brand (e.g. play with us and learn more about our products and services).
  

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next 9 trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo if you'd like to plan out your own Interactive Integrated Campaign.

What will happen with your Marketing Budget?

According to a new survey which is featured on BtoBOnline.com most Business-to-Business (b2b) Marketers intend to maintain or grow their budgets next year. This is interesting - even exciting - news when faced with the ongoing reality of the growing recession.

From the article:

"The online survey of 211 b-to-b marketing professionals was conducted in November. It found that 31.1% of marketers plan to boost their marketing budgets next year, while 43.5% plan to keep budgets flat. About one-quarter plan to decrease their marketing budgets next year.

"Significantly, of those planning increases, one-quarter intend to raise them by more than 20%, and nearly 9% plan increases between 15% and 19%."

Echoing the results of a MarketingProfs survey featured in this blog last week, the BtoBOnline study found that marketers will focus on web marketing, with 66.5% of marketers planning to increase their online spending. The reasons are pretty straight forward - online costs less than traditional media and delivers trackable results.

It is time to get started on your online marketing and advertising. Market GoGo can help you plan your Web Strategies to help you attract prospects, convert prospects to customers, upsell and cross-sell, serve your customers online, and get your customers to come back for more.

Contact Market GoGo to get started.

In today's economy, The Low Cost Strategy will Win (Part 2)

Yesterday, you and Market GoGo took some time for some deep thoughts about Porter's generic business strategies, and focused in on the Low Cost Strategy. Today, we will spend some time together thinking about the factors that make up a Low Cost Strategy, and thinking about some things you might consider for some Marketing Projects in the near future.

A Low Cost Business Strategy features tactics which emphasize efficiency, including:

1. Products designed for easy manufacturing
2. Emphasizing low-cost advantages in promotions
3. Efficient distribution channels
4. Incentives based on quantitative targets
5. Process (re-) engineering
6. Investing in technology to reduce costs
7. Standardization, resulting in economies of scale and experience curve effects
8. Tight cost controls and continuous search for cost reductions
9. Sustained access to inexpensive capital
10. Preferential access to inputs such as raw materials, components, labor, and so on
11. Close supervision of labor

• Items 1 to 4 are things that a Marketing Team is responsible for, and which it brings to Finance and Operations.
• Items 8-11 are owned by Finance and Operations they bring these back to the Marketing Team.
• Items 5-7 are things that are universally applicable.

Let's look at items 3, 4, 5, and 6. You can kill these four birds with one stone, and that stone is Web Marketing. Here are examples of each in action:

• Efficient distribution channels - What could be more efficient than the web? For a moment, consider the web exclusively as a sales channel - that is just your website and not the opportunity for advertising. Typically you have a relatively fixed cost for your website. It doesn't matter if you sell one widget or a billion. Once you scale for your sales, the cost will remain fairly consistent, and will be very small relative to the costs you'd need to spend for a similarly sized store-front or sales team. Similarly, go out and price an advertising campaign in the (dying) newspaper industry, and compare that to action-based keyword advertising on Google. The order of magnitude lower cost difference you will find in web-based advertising and the order of magnitude action difference you will find there too is boggling.
• Incentives based on quantitative targets - Imagine you are an airline, and you pay a 10% commission to Travel Agents. If you have $1Billion in sales, you'd be paying your travel agents $100 MILLION. Imaging what you could do with your website for $100 million. Now you can't replace your entire traditional Travel Agent team with your website, but you can go a long way in doing so at a substantially lower cost. Some food for thought ... maybe the budget for your web marketing should be set as an incentive! The better your Web Marketing does, the more cash is available for it do to better.
• Process (re-) engineering - To put your business on the web, one of the first actions you need to take is to map your business processes. This applies to every activity that you are putting on the web. Let's say you are going to reallocate your advertising budget from traditional newspaper and out-of-home media to that new-fangled web stuff. The first thing you should do is figure out how you conceive, create, approve, and publish your ads for the traditional world. The next thing is to look at how you will do that for the web world. Then apply those lessons back to the traditional world and cut out all the fat you can from all processes. In the end you will have processes that are aligned, and engineered for efficiency.
• Investing in technology to reduce costs - If the web isn't technology, what is? It is time to invest in fixed assets to reduce your business costs. Map out business processes for attracting prospects to your site, closing sales, upselling and cross-selling, serving customers, and getting them to come back to your store again. Then turn theses business processes into a technology road-map that will help you automate your business processes for advertising, selling, and serving your customers online.

You and Marketing Team need to get going on Low Cost Business Strategies. Contact Market GoGo to see how we can help you do this.

In today's economy, The Low Cost Strategy will Win

It is time to invest in technology and do a marketing project that will both:

• drive costs out of your business, and
  
• serve your prospects and customers better.
  

Why? Well - there's an "old" book by Michael Porter that is simply titled Competitive Strategy. In it, he talks about the three generic business strategies. Once you've read the three, you find you sit back and say to yourself, "Well, that was kind of obvious." But it is kind of like Newton and gravity. Sure, everyone knows that an apple will fall. But, making the observation and then learning from that is what gives you the advantage moving forward. So, the three strategies are:

1. Low Cost: The low cost leader gains competitive advantage by being able to produce at the lowest cost. You can sell things for the same price and have more profit, or more cash to do battle with, or win a price war and still make a profit.
2. Differentiation: Making things "special" will satisfy the needs of a segment of customers and create a sustainable competitive advantage that will make customers less price sensitive. It will also allow a producer to charge a premium. Some of that premium will need to be used to pay for the additional costs in making the product or service "special".
3. Focus or Niche strategy: The producer focuses on a narrowly defined target market. Inside the Niche strategy, a company can either focus on a sub-strategy of differentiation or low cost. Typically, a Niche strategy is adopted by a small firm.

(As a side-note, it is important that a producer chooses ONE of these three strategies only. If a firm attempts to pursue two or more of these strategies, they end up stuck in the middle and are DOOMED to failure.)

So ... let's look at this in practice. As the recession takes grip on shoppers, they are heading to the low-cost alternatives. Want to buy electronics? Where will you go?

• Will you go to a specialty TV Home Theatre store? Not likely. There are few, if any, stand-alone home theatre stores anymore. You will find some Service Providers (not even Retailers really) in the Yellow Pages who can help you out if you are spending $50k on a home theatre. Where they do exist, these Service Providers are purusing the Niche strategy
• Will you go to a big-box electronics store? Maybe. These Retailers are struggling, and while they want to be Differntiating their services, Electronics are getting much easier and much cheaper. Plus, the price concious consumer is really shopping around. And where they are finding themselves is in the Electronics department of ...
• THE LOW COST SUPPLIER. That's right, the place you are likely to end up now to buy your Electronics is Wal-Mart. Reuters reported today that Wal-Mart is about to sell an iPhone for $99. $99!. In that article they make special note of:

"Wal-Mart has been gaining market share and clout in the recession as cash-strapped shoppers seek out its low prices."

What does all this mean for you? First of all, you will need to really understand your brand, and the business strategy you are pursuing. Also, you will need to understand the maturity of your industry and your positioning in the group. Subsequently, you will need to look at how you manage your brand to gain competitive advantage in an economy that appears to be slumping for the next year or more. Finally, you will need to launch Marketing Projects that will help you achieve your Brand and Strategy goals.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for "part 2" of this post, and more thoughts about Low Cost Business Strategies, and what you can do to win!

Fruitcake Bashing Season has arrived

Where does time go? I can't believe we are back into December again. There is a funny website over at The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project that pokes fun at Fruitcake in a whole new way.

Will this go viral? Who knows. Certainly by blogging about it I'm helping it to go viral. However, I do think they have some work to do to really make it viral. There just doesn't seem to be enough fun stuff to do or experience when you hit their site.

The trick to "viral" is that you can't really force something to be viral. You can plan the stink out of a project with the great wish that it becomes viral. But, really, viral just "happens". It happens because people are so intrigued with an idea or an emotion that they want other people to share in it with them. In any event, attempting to become viral is just one of the tricks of the trade of Web Marketing.

All-in, the Great Fruitcake Recycling Project is worth a look.




Contact Market GoGo for help with your Web Advertising Strategy.

Why would you send me an email full of graphics?

Are you involved in email marketing? If you are, then this blog is all for you ...

Dear Email Marketer:
Please, please, please don't send me another email that is full of nothing but graphics. Sure, it looks pretty if I take the time to download all of your images. But, let's face it, I'm not going to.

Good old Microsoft Outlook - which dominates corporate email systems, and probably has a very high market share of personal email as well - does not by default load all your images. So, when your email lands in my inbox I just sit and stare at your blank looking email. I have a choice to make. Delete? Download? Delete takes about .5 seconds. Download takes about 5 seconds to load the images and then peruse your email before I delete it (because, honestly, I'm already in that mindset now that I have to download the good bits).

So - either way, I've deleted your email.

How can you make your email so that it is more likely that I'll read it. TEXT. TEXT. TEXT. Did that message come through? Put your important message in text in the body of the email. You can surround it all you want with pretty images and branding. I don't care about that. And, why should you care if I care? Your job is to get me to read your email and take action because of it.

So, to summarize:

• Fill your email with text
• Avoid and minimize the use of graphics
• Make the email work on its own without the graphics (i.e. who is it from, why should I care, what action should I take, why should I take action now)
• Add some graphics as necessary (e.g. your branding).

Thanks in advance for helping me to read your email.

Yours truly,
Dave Jones
VP Marketing and Sales
MarketGoGo.com

What is Market GoGo?

Market GoGo is a specialized Marketing Consultancy, based in Calgary. Market GoGo focuses on a few things that will help you to make your company more successful. Those things are strategic in nature, and focus on things that many companies just don't have the experience or the depth to do. Those things are:

• Brand Audit: A review of the "personality" of your company or a particular "brand" your company represents. It covers a wide swath of customer interactions and experiences with your brand from brand standards (signage, lettering, colors, etc.), to advertising, to customer service representatives, to your website, to your positioning statement, and so on. The goal of a Brand Audit is to help you understand your brand's assets and customer perceptions and subsequently to make decision and changes that will ultimately help you to drive more sales.
• Web Marketing and Advertising strategies: Web Marketing is all about doing five things as part of your Web Portfolio: Get prospective customers to your website, Convert prospects to customers, Up-sell and cross-sell to customers, Provide online service to customers, and Get customers to come back to buy from you again. This portfolio runs the gamut from bidding on Google text ads, to banner ads served by Advertising Networks, to mapping the web sales process flow, to researching customer behaviour on your website through analytics and customer research, to opt-in email marketing, and on, and on, and on!
• Project Management of your Strategic Marketing Projects: Marketing Project Management ensures that projects are delivered on-time and on-scope by the "delivery partner" (e.g. an IT Development Team or a Product Development Team). The Marketing Project Plan also ensures that the Marketing specific tasks - such as Communication and Advertising - are put in place at the right time.
• RFP Response for your B2B opportunity: Writing an RFP response is an arduous task. It is also one that you may not get to do enough, and consequently you aren't practiced in crafting a great response that will catch the attention of the team that both crafted the RFP and will review your response. Your response should get you noticed, and get you to the "next step" in the negotiating process.
• Aligning your Contact Center's Behavior with your brand: Most Contact Centers or Call Centers focus on technologies and practices that will drive cost-cutting through their business. For example, the use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems has been lauded by the Call Center industry as a great way to cut costs. But just find a customer who REALLY likes dealing with an IVR. Wouldn't you like your Call Centre's behavior and technology to provide the appropriate brand experience that your customers expect? That's the goal of Market GoGo's Contact Centre Strategy Approach.

Contact Market GoGo to find out more about how we can help you with your Branding and Marketing.

The Renaissance of Web Advertising?

"Renaissance" according to Wikipedia comes the French and means "rebirth".

Since about 2001 when the big internet bust took place it has been hard to convince hard-core traditional marketing people that they should be turning their hard-won advertising dollars to advertising "experiments" on the web. Even in the face of grossly successful tests, hard-core traditional advertising people still believed that their dollars were better spent on out-of-home bill-boards, prime-time TV spots (plus production, etc.), and weekend newspaper inserts.

But, new research from MarketingProfs.com shows that the tide might be turning. The renaissance for Online Marketing could be the current Financial Crisis. In the MarketingProfs research report Benchmark Research on Marketing in the Economic Crisis ($199 for members, and free for Premium Members (the Premium Membership pretty much pays for the research report)), they note that 16-26% of firms are looking to reallocate their marketing budgets among alternatives. The big winner stands to be Web Marketing. From their report ...

Digital marketing vehicles may provide an opportunity to stretch a marketing budget. Those marketers who can best position themselves vis-à-vis the competition and can capitalize on creative and innovative use of online marketing tactics may be able to reap the greatest return on the shift in allocation to this new media.

So - the time is right to plan your web marketing and advertising strategy.

• If you are a traditional advertising person ... don't delay, get online now.
• If you are an online advertising person ... the time is right. Strike while the iron is hot.