October 08, 2004
New site design
Well some pro's redesigned our site. What think about it. Have to say they did some strange things to movabletype so I'll have to figure out what all these statics they added are. Let me know what you think.
Main things you'll see are some static pages that are attached to our blog. It goes to show just how blog like I've gotten that when I look at a static page that I can't understand why this isn't just a blog entry with a different template.
October 04, 2004
Best Sellers
Since we're about to launch our "future" best seller, Johnza and I were interested to know how all these best seller lists work. Fortunately google:"business best seller book list" makes it easy to figure this. Here were the top hits and some notes about how good you have to be. Kind of interesting since the book itself is a mirror of its own marketing problem. With thousands of books being published how do you get ahead of the pack:
- Amazon Business & Investing Best Seller. Not sure how often this is updated, but it is the general business and investing category.
July 06, 2004
PPC to PFP
MediaDailyNews 07-06-04. The web is becoming more direct marketing oriented than ever. First there were banners where you paid from banner shown (the so called CPM) model.
Then, we hit the Pay-per-click model where a site only gets paid if someone clicks through.
Now, we are on the next trend which is Pay-for-performance. This means you only get paid if someone actually buys a product for your site.
Some also called it affiliate marketing. The big players are networks of sites like ValueClick, 24/7 Real Media and AOL's advertising.com. LinkShare is another example.
July 01, 2004
PestPatrol's information service
MediaDailyNews 07-02-04 - PestPatrol Unveils Center For Pest Research
. This is a great idea for promotions that we're seeing so much more of.
The market for anti-spyware is vast and growing. Dells says 20% of their tech support is devoted to getting rid of the stuff. So, in the classic promotional sense, how do you get on top?
Well, the miracle of google means that if you provide useful information people will come to you. Probably the greatest service Google has provided is that useful information remains the best way to get a good pagerank. You can obviously game it, but its still mostly true.
The smart companies like PestPatrol or Applied Discovery work hard to provide information that is useful. So check out your category page rank and instead of just buying keywords, ask how could I be the #1 site in google:"home networking" or google:"anti virus".
June 30, 2004
Lance Armstrong Promotions
Well, the Tour de France is starting and its Lance's try at winning six times. Its hard not to get excited, but from a marketing point of view, folks seem to be really revving up. I was actually amazed last year that only Suburu really seemed to do much around Lance. Could be because no one in America knows what cycling is. Sure not true this year.
Armstrong lack of endorsements?. It is one of those interesting blind spots in promotion that Lance won't do it. And again it might be that Nike has figure this out given how much they are pushing.
Checkout Nike: See Lance Ride. Nike has really done a great job. First with livestrong, their cancer promotion that ties into the yellow jersey (symbol of winner in the Tour de France) to their latest TV spots.
There are others like Dasani. Armstrong will star in a new Dasani commercial entitled "Can't Live Without a Challenge," which highlights his non-stop competitive spirit. In the spot, Armstrong takes on a stronger rival in a chin up contest and shoots hoops with opponents who tower over him, replenishing himself with the refreshing taste of Dasani throughout each uncharacteristic activity. The ad, which debuts this week, closes with Lance on his bike next to a motorcyclist, his eyes shining at the opportunity to race.
June 21, 2004
The mundane can be remarkable
Brand Autopsy: The Soup Peddler – A Case Study in the Art of Being Remarkable
This story about a guy who sells soup from his bike reminded me of an amazing marketer that I knew when I used to live in Brooklyn. The guy was a Russian imigrant who had a laundry. He got a local neighborhood directory and started sending everyone a note saying he was new to the neighborhood and to come in and get some free shirts.
Everyone who came got free shirts and some Russian cookies. Each week he kept track of who came in from the list. And each week he sent a little reminder saying hey, why haven't you come yet, my wife and I are waiting for you. Then finally, he sent notes to the people who hadn't come saying "Hey, what's wrong with you? You sick? You don't want clean shirts? You don't like to meet new people?" People came and he gained total neighborhood market share dominance. No anti-trust suits have been filed yet as far as I know.
June 11, 2004
Behavioral Targeting
Well, one of the great trends in marketing is how to target users. There are two great families of promotions. The first is brand, that means, get the name out for my more recognition. The second is direct mail where there's an offer.
The internet has really been mainly about direct. That is, see something, click on it and then get an offer. The current state of the art is optimization. That is, churn the actually copy of a banner or whatever and the time. Measure response rates and then you can switch to the most effective ad.
Now we are headed toward behaviorial targeting. That means, knowing the target segment that clicks. That way, if you were to search for google:"Iraq" you now get banner ads for the GSA contracts to bid on in Iraq. As opposed to an ad for Tiffany's because you are probably wealthy. You get the picture.
A few companies are in this area and its the hot new thing. Some of them:
- MediaDailyNews 06-12-04. Tacoda to Publishers. These guys are letting publishers of sites identify their customers by segment.
- RevenueScience. These folks are around the corner and are doing the same thing.
May 24, 2004
More on simplicity
And another article on Maeda's Simplicity Workshop. Nice to see someone else with a simplicity soapbox.
Advertising Trends
Lots of interesting changes happening in advertising right now:
- Advertising is everywhere. Great points about how folks are moving beyond traditional media to naming, Internet, product placements, etc.
- Forecasters see strong growth in ad spend. A good overview of how much rebound there's been. 5% in 2003 and 7% in 2004
- Promotions growing rapidly. Promotion budgets are growing more rapidly brand advertising in traditional markets gets stale.
- "Advertisers are not where the consumers are":
- Kagan Says. A great researcher of media trends. Their reports cost a forturne, but they have one place where you can see their quotes and news releases.
May 23, 2004
Advertising Trends
Lots of interesting changes happening in advertising right now:
- Advertising is everywhere. Great points about how folks are moving beyond traditional media to naming, Internet, product placements, etc.
- Forecasters see strong growth in ad spend. A good overview of how much rebound there's been. 5% in 2003 and 7% in 2004
May 19, 2004
Creative has at least something to do with it
gapingvoid: the best advertising strategy is one that gives a damn
Here's super, super creative Hugh Macleod's take at his super, super cool blog Gaping Void. We've talked a lot about media issues etc. contributing to the decline of standard advertising. Maybe the the value proposition is just off? But clearly creative has something to do with it. Too much is just plain boring, repetitive, pandering, forced, vapid, cloned from someone else's efforts, or just bad.
If you never notice an ad, it's pretty hard to be effective no matter where it's placed.
May 18, 2004
Beyond "your logo here." Way beyond.
Boing Boing: I, T-shirt: wearable movie trailers at NextFest
Another really interesting forray into going beyond standard broadcast media for reaching grabbing people. Pretty darn cool, movies on T Shirts.
Talk about positioning. I've heard of people wearning thier hearts on thier sleeves, but now how about running your demo on your, ahem, chest.
What's next? Maybe instead of blogging or posting listing on the web, you'll create a cool flash movie promoing your stuff and post it to specific, targetted people's clothes.
May 17, 2004
Why Direct Response doesn't work all the time
GrabTheMic. Here's a great example. On this bloggers site are a bunch of comments about Iraq. The net result is that his Google Adsense bar is filled with things that are a little ridiculous when you consider what the Economist, Washington Post or other publication would carry next to a piece about the war there.
- Iraq Revenue Watch. Monitor reconstruction funds.
- Iraqi Reconstructions. Get the GSA contract data
- Leave Iraq? Get a $50 gift card from captainbargains.com
- Articles archived on Iraq from Keepmedia.com
- Need help on Middle East JV legal creation
So that's the different between DR and branding. The only data Adsense has is what's on the page, not about who is viewing the page.
Here's what the economist carries as banners as a result of a query on Iraq articles that lead you to the latest catastrophe
- Man Financial. Every future is personal
- Chicago Merchantile Exchnage free seminar on investing
- Smith Barney citigroup on getting a financial investor
- Tiffany & Co. introducing a new watch.
See the difference. Three brand ads and there is one direct response, but not for someone who wants a GSA contract contact for Iraq, but for trading hog futures.
Net, net, knowing who is reading vs. what they are reading is pretty important in the world of advertising and promotion.
What's the Value of Brand Advertising?
John Battelle's Searchblog: What's the Value of Brand Advertising?. A great question. Most of the stuff on the Internet is all about direct response, but that's not the way lots of purchases work.
It's not like you think I need Tide and then you click on it 90% of the time. More like, you see Tide a bunch of times (frequency) and lots of people see it (reach) and eventually when you buy a detergent, you see it and say, yup I like it.
That would be like car guys blitzing people just in the 1 month they want to buy a car. It is often way too late by then. That's what image is all about.
That's not to say direct response and brand don't live together. They just have different purposes.
Depending on the play you are running and the playfield of course :-)
May 14, 2004
Whither Click Rates
Click Rates to Head Downward Again · MarketingVOX. I remember when click throughs were 5%. Now, people cheer at a 10 basis point increase.
Interesting. Also someone told me that only 30% of people ever clickthrough on anything. What does that tell you?
The master of Point B
Monkeymagic:: thoughts on thinking :: Write like you speak archives
We've written alot about the ABCs and driving killer campaigns. But as Piers Young notes, Jerry Weissman is a master of teaching you how to tell your story compellingly. He is also the author of the concept PointB™ - the desired state you put out there to generate interest. Awesome guy. Awesome teacher. Author. Mentor. Friend. Here's what some other folks are saying too:
Brendon Wilson: "Best of all, I managed to attend ... a seminar/workshop on "Pitching to Win" - complete with Jerry Weissman, the legendary pitchman who has helped numerous CEOs tune their IPO roadshows, giving tips from his new book, "Presenting to Win". Cool!
Chris Anderson: "a book I recently read, and loved: Presenting to Win, by Jerry Weissman."
Dennis Kennedy: "I've just finished the highly-praised Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, by presentation guru Jerry Weissman. Add me to the list of fans."
And FastCompany - which had a good article on 5 Ways to Talk to Money
