Time to Advertise on the Internet and TV

Last week, Businessweek.com published an article discussing why now is the right time to advertise on TV, the Internet and Radio. Citing that media companies are just looking to survive right now, being quite willing to negotiate rates and terms.

Prime-time TV spots are selling today for 25% less than what they were selling for just 12 months ago.

Some of the media companies before wouldn't work with smaller organizations, but given slower ad sales rates and decreased marketing budgest, they are growing ever more flexible. Furthermore, PR firms and production companies are reducing their rates to ensure their survival during a slow economy.

This is great if you are wanting to expand your advertising options. Freelance web developers, graphic artists and video production companies are more willing than ever to negotiate their cost of services.

In addition to ad and production rates coming down, viewership has risen and continues to rise dramatically. Quoted from the article: "People aren't going out as much; they're staying home watching TV or looking at the Internet. So these venues are getting more impressions but they're charging less money."

"Entrepreneurs should be prepared to haggle over pricing, he says, being aware that it's better to run more spots at a less desirable time than to blow their ad budgets on one prime-time slot"

Read the entire article: Time to Buy TV, Radio, and Internet Ads?

Video Marketing In All it’s Glory

Americans viewed 12 billion videos in May 2008. In 2006 sites such as YouTube took off allowing users of all ages and web expertise to upload millions of videos from around the globe in all types of topics. Billions of searches later, we find that video marketing is a real important form of marketing online. When you are speaking to a consumer about experiencing a place, product, message, etc. what better way to show them through visuals?

Marketing your video online is the key business differentiator for web companies that want to communicate their product profile and benefits within the shortest possible time and do it effectively. There is nothing else that comes close to the effectiveness and persuasion power of a well designed video message.

This doesn't mean that putting up a 10-min video tutorial on your site will automatically get you to double-up your conversion rate of new registrants or that you will instantly sell more of your products. There is more to effective video communication than just slamming some video content up on your web pages.

There are several reasons that in today’s marketing world, video is the best way to go. The average attention span of a web user is measured in seconds. Once delivered to you on a red carpet by a major search engine search query, or by a recommendation link on a review blog, the new web visitor applies only a very limited effort and time to see whether she can make sense of what you are communicating/selling/proposing and to decide whether your content, style, look and approach are a good fit for what she was actually looking for. If you can engage her interest right there and then, and offer a fast, highly visual way to let her discover what your "message" is, you have done bingo. See, at any given point within those first few vital seconds on your site, the new web visitor is on the verge of clicking away and abandoning that flimsy but unique opportunity to open up a relationship, possibly a conversation with you and your products.

Other notable findings from a May 2008 study include:

• 74 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 228 minutes of video.
• 82.2 million viewers watched 4.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).
• 54.8 million viewers watched 703 million videos on MySpace.com (12.8 videos per viewer).
• 6.8 million viewers watched 88 million videos on Hulu.com (13.0 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 2.7 minutes.

Fast forward to today:

• 89 million viewers watch 5.5 billion movies each month on YouTube.com
• 9 million viewers watch 348 million movies each month on HuLu.com
• 25 million viewers watch 232 million movies each month on Yahoo.com

Tips for a Better Video Message:

• Put Your Video on your Home Page (or at least a link to it)
• Be Up Front About the Length of the Video
• Add Audio
• Create Buzzwords Around and Within the Video
• Post Your Video on Sites that Allow Free Video Posting

Video Marketing is much more than posting videos and waiting for consumers to watch them. Videos we post online need the same optimization a web page needs to be found through the search engines. On sites such as YouTube you can create keywords that are associated with your video which can be used to reach and download your video. The key to video marketing is to be savvy with where you post to begin with. Most videos are reached through buzz in social networks and through viral avenues. Keep in mind sites such as YouTube, MySpace, AOL, IGoUGo and Facebook.

Facebook as a Brand Builder not an Ad Network

Facebook is obviously widely popular these days. Everyone wants to advertise their brand or product on Facebook. We are here to say...don't just advertise...brand yourselves in your own way. Simpler put, you have only ample characters and a small pic to truly impress millions of users each day when you only place an ad. Do you think that will be effective enough to stimulate movement? Not really. eMarketer released excellent stats on Facebook usage last month. 

Each day during the month, Facebook users averaged over 3 billion minutes on the site. They updated their status 15 million times and became “fans” of a particular company, brand, product or person 3.5 million times daily.

In addition, Compete found that that US residents spent more time on Facebook than any other Website, beating out previous leader Yahoo!. However, Nielsen Online still ranks the site third behind AOL and Yahoo!.

But Facebook’s rapid user growth has not translated into advertising revenues.

The habits of social network users are one obstacle. In 2008,IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, a dramatic difference from the 80% of other Internet users who did so at least once a year. Further, 23% of nonusers who clicked on an ad then made a purchase; only 11% of social network users who clicked on ads did the same.

When marketing professionals were surveyed by TNS Media Intelligence on what objectives had the most social media potential, most said brand-building initiatives such as gaining consumer insights, building brand awareness and increasing customer loyalty.

None said increasing intent to purchase.

So, that said from eMarketer. Build your brand through the applications that Facebook provides. Don't just think about ads...it's much more fun to create a whole page dedicated to your brand.

Search Engine Strategies Conference in NYC

The marketing team at Jennifer Barbee, Inc. attended the SES Conference in NYC last week. With over 50 speakers including marketing reps from Google and Microsoft, the content of both the educational sessions and the panel discussions was great. Cutting edge marketing tactics, interactive media development, paid and organic strategies and mobile marketing tactics were just the tip of the “marketing iceberg” for attendees at this year’s conference. 

After attending over 12 educational sessions and a “Twitter” keynote delivered by Guy Kawasaki, we have so much take away, it’s hard to boil down to a “Top” list but we want to share with you some of the key points and tactics learned by our marketers at Jennifer Barbee, Inc. To read more about the conference and the presentations, visit www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork

·         Organic Strategy – Marketers should be thinking farther than the “World Wide Web”. There is a deeper level of web content called the “Deep Web” which is now what marketers should be considered their area of opportunity. The “Deep Web” contains 400-500x more content than the “World Wide Web”. What is the “Deep Web” consist of? Universal and Blended Media + Content. Including Whitepapers, Videos, Imagery, PDFs, Blogs, Social Network Profiles, etc. All of these new areas of content have come on to the web over the last 2-3 years. It’s important to optimize all your content and your media for blended search results.

·         Optimize the Right Content – The more important content on your page: Headline, Sub Headings, Bullet Points and Paragraph Headers.

·         Optimizing Flash – Oh yes, there is now a way to do this. Web sites will be flashier and more search friendly than ever.

·         Utilizing Google Analytics – There is now more ways to track and report than ever before. Make sure you are utilizing all the aspects their reporting system offers.

·         Twitter as a Tool – We can’t begin to explain all the new Twitter Tools and Tactics being utilized by the best Twitter marketers in the world. But here are some to definitely look into:

o   Retweetist

o   Twitter Counter

o   Monitor What People Say About You – Search.Twitter.com

o   TWIBS.com

o   Tweetdeck.com

·         Social Marketing – A great quote from Guy K, we have to share: “Forget the A-List, Nobodies are the New Somebodies”

·         SEM – Links are still important to Engine Algorithm (Links to your site AND Links within your site).

·         Design & SEO – It’s more important than ever to train your graphics team and designers in SEO stategy. Optimiztion HAS to start from the ground up. Before you build your web site, your team must design the blue prints together.

·         Your Web Site URL – Buy whole domain names instead of developing a special page or section within your site. The more relative your URL is to the content available on that URL, the more points you have with engines.

·         Mobile Marketing Statistic – In 2007 80% of mobile customers weren’t online. By 2011, 90% of mobile users will be searching.

·         Test Your Site’s Usability – Before you launch your site, test it on top mobile browsers for compatibility. Also test your site’s compatibility on all internet browsers including Firefox and Google Chrome.

·         Have Videos? Post Them! – YouTube is the 4^th Biggest Site on the Web. 1 in 4 searches on the web happen on YouTube. If you have videos, start a channel and make sure you add relative titles, descriptions and tags to your videos.

·         Theory by Many Marketing Execs – Everyone will be Mobile in 5 years, the screen for which we search is definitely shrinking.

·         Blog Marketing – Find blogs in your niche market, contact them to offer a blog within their blog in which you could become their guest blogger. Add your links and other helpful links within your posts as well.

·         Crazyegg.com – Find out whether your site is user friendly or not. See where users are clicking, whether they are clicking clickable areas or not.

·         Importance of Media Placement & Tactics – Retargeting is the most important tactic for media placement. If users don’t engage with your first effort, Maximize this effort by going back to users with different (but retargeted) ads and offers.

·         Marketing during the Recession – Digital media efforts are holding their own against TV, Print and Radio during the recession. Be more targeted, Be more efficient, Be smarter with your Buys.