A couple weeks ago I sat down to read the Sunday Chicago Tribune. It looked weird. Why? Because the front page was half covered by an advertising page wrapped around the first section. I couldn't start reading until I took the ad page off.
Then I go to the sports section - same thing! Scores and recaps covered by ads.
What are the newspapers thinking? Readership continues to decline, advertisers continue to drift away, and what do the papers do? They go out of their way to annoy the few remaining readers they have with the worst kind of interruption marketing. I don't get it.
In terms of online advertising, one thing everybody knows, whether they surf the Web or not, is that pop-up ads are universally hated. So what does the Tribune do? They come up with a print version of a pop-up ad. Well, I didn't bother to read it, but if I had, I wouldn't be much inclined to buy anything from any of the advertisers.
I wonder if newspapers ever ask readers what they'd like see in their publications. My view may be typical. I'd love to read a newspaper that was free of advertisements. If a paper listed its advertisers on a single page (page one for all I care), I would go out of my way to patronize each and every one of them. If that's not feasible, how about putting all ads in a single section dedicated to advertising?
Well, maybe the Tribune is listening after all. The wrap around ad pages have disappeared. But papers need to new more than maintain the status quo if they expect to hold on to their subscribers, let alone attract new ones. Fresh ideas are needed.
Building an attractive, appealing, and engaging Web site is an exercise in continuous improvement - new content, new designs, and new features. Some companies, though, put a site up and leave it alone. Leave it alone long enough, and you may be better off without a site at all. Here's are 15 features of a Web site in dire need of a makeover.
The color scheme looks straight out of the '90's
The last link in the Company News section is from 2003
No Company News section
The About Us section has biographies of executives who no longer work there
No About Us section
The site has a splash page
Text is too small to read
Text is clownishly oversized
Pages take forever to load because of too many graphic images
Before leaving the economy, take a look at the boldly titled How Search Engine Marketing Can Save the Economy. The fact is, search engine marketing has always been a highly efficient way to attract customers. But until this recent nosedive, not everyone cared. Now everyone has no choice but to care.
Social media is a definite boon to online marketers, yet still more of a potential boon than something that produces hard and fast results. Learn more about The Limitations of Social Media.
Still, we shouldn't turn a blind eye to the potential of social media. Here's a new tool called twizon, where Twitter meets Amazon. Grass roots, conversational marketing for the biggest e-commerce site on the planet.
With all the hoopla surrounding social media marketing, paid search engine marketing is in danger of falling into the dread class of "traditional" marketing activities. However, if paid search has become an integral component of today's marketing budget, it's because paid search gets results -- and we have no shortage of statistics to prove it. Here are a few reasons why companies continue to invest heavily in paid search campaigns.
Paid search gets immediate results. Search engine optimization, or SEO, takes time, often quite a bit of time, to have a noticeable effect on search engine rankings. Conversely, paid search provides immediate search engine exposure and with it, Web site traffic. Paid search drives targeted traffic. No doubt SEO is worthwhile, but how often does your Google search query display sites having nothing to do with your intended search? It's a common problem, and explains why a lot of R &D is going into contextual search engine technology. But a well written and strategically placed pay per click ad will attract site visitors with a qualified interest in your offering.
Paid search requires less labor. While the hard costs of paid search may exceed those of social media marketing (and even there, arguments can be made either way), the internal time commitment to support paid search should be less than what is required to execute a full blown social media program. Writing, brand monitoring, and networking takes time and, except for very large companies, is far more difficult to outsource than a paid search campaign.
Paid search is measurable. What's the ROI on your sales brochures? How about the ROI on your blog? Hard to measure, isn't it? Now, that hardly means those types of marketing activities should be abandoned, but it does mean to have a balanced marketing program you need measurable activities in the mix. Nothing this side of direct mail is more measurable than paid search marketing, which leads to its most important benefit ... Paid search produces continually improving results. Since paid search is measurable, campaigns can be compared to each other using simple A-B split testing. Sometimes, a single word change can result in high percentage increases in traffic. Careful testing and monitoring allows companies to launch more effective ads with every new campaign. If you think paid search marketing is smoke and mirrors, you may need to investigate further or work with a different search marketing firm.
One of my favorite features of LinkedIn is the Answers section. Talk about a fabulous way to get help on business issues!
A while back I needed to conduct several webinars for a client. Although I had participated in several webinars, I had never conducted one and had no idea which software/service to use.
So I asked the question, What is the best webinar tool for a basic meeting, and why? Within hours, I had several incredibly informative responses recommending various webinar tools. Since the responders were experts in the field, their input was reliable. This simple use of LinkedIn saved me hours of research, and made me confident in my decision.
You can ask questions to your own network or the entire LinkedIn network. I've seen folks query their own network for input on an article, market research, and product or service offerings.
Answering questions in your area of expertise can help build your reputation and lead to new business connections and opportunities. (To say nothing of helping people out!) People in LinkedIn are very appreciative when they receive help. Truth be told, they should be, because preparing a good answer takes a fair amount of effort.
Remember - there is more knowledge outside your business than there can ever be inside. That's why a social network like LinkedIn has so much power. Today, collaboration is king!
Twitter is the biggest social media phenomenon since Facebook. Bloggers are flocking to it like bees to honey, yet the reviews are decidedly mixed.
Some bloggers love Twitter, citing its relationship building power, convenience, interpersonal feel, brevity, and "fun factor". Some bloggers, as well as large companies including Dell, have reported significant lead and business generation through skillful, strategic twitting.
On the other hand, Twitter has its critics, who complain of the site's tendency toward the trivial, its brevity (how much can you really say in 140 characters?), and the impossibility of following, let alone participating in, hundreds or thousands of conversations.
Ironically, a major fly in the Twitter ointment right now is due to its skyrocketing popularity - continual server downtime. In the past week, I've been unable to log in on multiple occasions, and have gotten bounced off just as I was getting into some fairly interesting conversations.
It's still way too early to pass judgment on Twitter. Twitter tools and widgets are being developed faster than you can count them, and experimentation by business-minded bloggers may discover practical, replicable, and scalable ways to use Twitter for driving Web site traffic.
Social media is always about collective experimentation -- much different from traditional search marketing, the province of tightly defined, measurable, and scalable advertising models and programs. Both have their place.
Judging from the enormous number of savvy bloggers fascinated by Twitter, I wouldn't bet against it just yet.
