Online Marketing Book That Works

There are lots of interesting books about marketing, but few that use their own points to prove that their marketing works.

Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg did. They sold 90 percent of their new book Call To Action online and marched into the bestseller lists at the Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) and USA Today. They managed to do this without the support of the nationwide bookstore's.

This achievement should be a wake-up call to marketers doing what they always do. There are more than one way to reach your sales targets and in doing so, save some of the marketing budget.

So what about the book?

Call to Action presents an overview of the principles and tactics of conversion rate marketing, focusing exclusively on helping clients persuade and convert their traffic into leads, customers and sales.

I will read the book and let you know what I think, by evaluating the ROI I got from their advice.

Behavioral Targeting Buzz

Ad Age reports that behavioral targeting is becoming more popular among US online advertisers. A majority of interactive ad agencies are already using it and 58 percent of those who don't plan to start, according to Ponenom Research.

Significantly better results are behind the increased popularity among advertisers. As an example:

"A Volkswagen Jetta A4 campaign done by remnant advertising network Advertising.com, placed 100 million branded placements, and received 9,000 clickthroughs from consumers looking for more information. But among 10 million impressions served on behaviorally targeted sites, there were 10,000 clickthroughs for more information."

The example shows that advertisers get more clickthroughs and the Web real estate is used more efficient. The Internet user sees ad's that is more relevant to his or her interests and responds by clicking through to the advertiser's website.

This is probably banner advertising at its best.

Retailers Search Ad Spending Up

US Retailers doubled their spending on search engine advertising in 2004, according to a Forrester Research report

Media Post writes that "Forrester reported that 137 retailers nationwide spent an average of $877,630 search-engine ads in 2004, compared to $399,923 in 2003. The retailers also said search marketing was responsible for 43 percent of traffic to their Web sites."

To me, the Search Engine share of the traffic is very impressing, these companies probably spends a lot of their budget on above the line marketing, like Print, TV, Radio and Outdoor.

Please remember that I work with Search Marketing, when reading this. Still, the numbers tell their own story, don't they?

BitTorrent Launches Search Engine

Wired reports that Bram Cohen, the master mind behind BitTorrent , the ingenious P2P file distribution tool, is launching a multi-media search engine. It will be dedicated to cataloguing and indexing files that are downloaded with the popular Bit Torrent protocol.

The search-engine will carry pay-per-click advertising.

A spokesperson from the project told Wired that: "Web search rates things by relevance. Our search rates things by relevance and availability."

I bet you that most file-sharers like the sound of that!

Transition Times

The uptake of broadband use has been slower in Europe than in the US, with approximately one in five households connecting to broadband, compared to nearly one in three in the US. But this is changing quickly. eMarketer tells that "Broadband households in Western Europe increased by nearly 65% last year, a rate twice as fast as the US."

The high speed Internet connection is opening up for quicker transition of offline advertising to online. These two articles tell us that it's already happening.

Clickz.com "Video Ads Are Streaming In" stating that "Streaming video ads and sponsorships number over 1 billion served each month, according to a new AccuStream iMedia Research report."

LA Times "Web Pulls Ad Buyers From TV" " stating that "More than 1 million people saw a Buick commercial before watching the antics of "Desperate Housewives." So why should broadcast television executives be nervous?

Because the Buick ad was on the Internet."

From Mass Media To Mass Marketing

Andy Warhol once said "In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes." Later he stated: "I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, " In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."

I don't think Andy Warhol knew how right he was - Twice!

We are going from mass media to media from the masses. Blogs, Vlogs and Podcasting give anyone the possibility to reach out and influence others.

Imagine the power of an individual when they are able to publish and internationally distribute audio and video more effective then a TV network. The net is creating world famous stars and the audience is listening.

Today it has become more difficult and more expensive for advertisers to reach consumers via mass media. Consumers are no longer the "mass audience" they used to be. They expect a more personalized and creative approach. They show an increasing lack of tolerance for marketing that is irrelevant to their lives, or that is unsolicited.

No wonder creative marketers came up with new marketing concepts like "word-of-mouth", "creating a buzz" and "network marketing" - What we all know as "viral marketing" on the Internet.

A new concept where the salesperson is the same as the consumer has been born. It's using bloggers like you and me, to reach out and influence others. If this is true, USWeb.com are paying people to blog about USWeb.com's advertising clients.

Besides the legal aspects of the idea, what happens if smart mobs become paid mobs?

The whole concept makes me wonder if it's a marketing trick for...you know who?

Yahoo Is Back In Scandinavia

Today Yahoo re-launched in Scandinavia. Please check out the sites in:
Sweden , Denmark and Norway

Here are some press-coverage in local languages:
Dagens Media - Sweden
Computerworld - Denmark
Propaganda - Norway

Great News!

Is Pro Bloggers The Future?

What's your opinion about the trend where journalists try to blog on the big dailies websites?

Nah, I guessed so.

More exciting is the suggestion from Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations at the New York Times Co, he said that New York Times may offer columns to bloggers in a revenue-sharing arrangement. You can read the whole interview from AdAge.

Btw, This gun's not for hire ;-)

Mobile TV Coming To A Screen Near You?

Yesterday Telia, launched two channels in their 3G network - Star and Voice. Another 3G operator, 3 have been streaming video to their mobile phone users for quite some time. 3 have been focusing on music services, like On Air and MTV.

These are the first streaming video channels of many to come to our mobile phones. In fact, we all will probably have mobile TV in a few years. Most mobile phone users switch mobile phone more often than TV or computer. For this reason, the first digital-TV receiver in many homes is likely to be a handheld.

Mobile TV is said to have higher quality than the streaming video used today. Nokia and Samsung have both presented mobile phones capable of receiving TV signals broadcasted to all mobile phone users at the same time.

These handhelds is said to hit the market before the end of this year and the research group Informa expects handset makers to sell 130,000 TV phones this year, rising to 83.5 million by 2010

That is big numbers in a short period of time. Compared to the Apple Ipod sales over the last few years, it's huge. And we all know what kind of money and spin-off companies that Ipod generated.

I'm not capable of judging the Informa estimate, but I believe Mobile TV will be a hit. According to The Korea Times Nokia claims that 4 out of 5 Germans wants to receive Mobile TV on their handheld. Not surprisingly, Deutsche Telecom has made a deal with Samsung for the delivery of Mobile TV handhelds.

Mobile TV will become interesting from a marketing perspective. Mobile TV combined with geo-targeting is local TV-advertising on the go. TV direct marketing to a known user at a known location.

"Today H&M Stockholm is starting up the wicked winter sale!"

Wham bam - from the screen into the store in less then 3 min walk!

DAB Radio Failure

An article in Svenska Dagbladet is claiming that after 10 years and investments for over 400 million SEK DAB Radio in Sweden has attracted only 7 000 users.

In the same time web radio have gone from 0 users to 178 200 daily Swedish listeners. Even more impressive is the weekly reach of the 795 600 web radio listeners. I wrote about the Swedish web radio in "Internet and the private radio " yesterday.

I for one wish my tax money was spent on more productive initiatives than DAB Radio projects with little future.

To expensive and too late!

Internet And The Private Radio

In the early nineties I used to be a radio DJ. It was during the years Sweden went from government monopoly radio, to commercial radio. It was great fun.

Unfortunately the government decided sell the commercial frequencies to the highest bid. The best frequencies went for millions of SEK, a fee to be paid every year. This killed any chance the private radio had to produce local material. The stations could only afford to send networked music radio. Hiring local DJ:s and producing local material wasn't in the budget.

If you haven't heard the Swedish private radio, believe me - It's less fun listening to, than washing your car!

Ever since I stopped DJ'ing, I've been interested in how the Internet will change the the listening habits. Today web radio is becoming more and more popular. RUAB have asked 20 000 Swedes aged 9-79 about their web radio listening:

- 2, 3 percent or 178 200 Swedes are listening to web radio on a daily basis.

- 10, 4 percent or 795 600 of the Swedes are listening to web radio every week. That?s up 2, 2 percent since last year.

- In the ages 9-34 well over 15 percent are listening on web radio every week.

In fact - The daily web radio listeners equals the number of inhabitants in Uppsala, Sweden?s fourth largest city. Uppsala is the home of two private radio stations, Rix FM and City Radio.

City Radio are paying 2.539.000 SEK yearly for their frequency in Uppsala. As if that wasn't bad enough, City Radio have to compete with a lot of local public- and amateur radio stations. Given the fact that City Radio is reaching a percentage of all listeners in Uppsala, the frequency cost per listener gets very high.

My conclusion is that the private radio stations are paying a lot, for analogue frequencies that the Internet is overriding.

The politicians could give the Swedish private radio a break by lowering the frequency fees. Then the local stations could hire some local talent and add that important local touch that's missing today.

Or is it too late, with the Podcasting revolution just around the corner?

A How To Checklist For Marketers!

I regularly check Henrik Torstenssons weblog where I often find interesting pieces about just about everything on the Internet.

Today Henrik published a link to Seth Godin who writes about What every good marketer knows. It made me laugh when Seth points out that:

"Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it."

That's very, very true!

The iPod Effect On Mac Sales?

When Apples success with iPod became clear, journalists and analysts started talking about the "halo effect". That is, when the positive sales and vibes surrounding iPod and iTunes would translate into higher Mac sales.

Maybe the "halo effect" is real?

According to Apples second quarter results, Apple shipped 1.07 million Macs. That's a 43 per cent increase on the same period a year ago. This sales might have been boosted by the sales of over five million iPod?s in the same period - 558 per cent increase on 2004.

If the "halo effect" is true, it's no surprise. After falling in love with my iPod I bought my first Mac. I remember walking out of the Apple store, wondering how many PC users where switching to Mac, because they fell in love with their iPod's?

At least we know the numbers are rising!

O'Reilly Radar - Follows The Alpha Geeks

Technology is developing at the speed of light. For those of us interested in monitoring what's hot or not, it's a hard and time consuming task. Especially if you're looking for the new-new thing.

Now O'Reilly Radar, made things a little easier. They are paying attention to what the alpha geeks are interested in. Then they let us all know. Awesome!

The Quick Fix In Marketing - Wikipedia!

If you ever felt that you need to freshen up those old school marketing models, Wikipedia is the place to go. Wiki is the place where thousands of people share their knowledge. What ever you forgot, thousands of sharp minds will help you to remember.

Wikiwiki is a publishing tool, that allows anyone to post anything to a website. Once posted, anyone else can edit, add and over-write the original contribution.

If you are a marketer, I urge you to check what other Internet users have written about you business, products or brands on Wikipedia.

You can even find marketing quotes for your Power Point presentations at Wikiquote.

Local Search by Google in the UK

Since Google and Yahoo launched their popular local search services in the US, we Europeans have been looking forward to have the same service.

Now we can, at least in the UK, where Google launched their local search together with "Yell.com", the online arm of UK Yellow Pages.

If you like me, frequently visit London and are up for fun, this is a great service. Try searching for "Bar Soho" and you will be served with suggestions where to go, neatly displayed on a local map.

Way to go, Joe!

Display Ads Influence Search

Meidaweek has published an article stating what we all knew, but didn't have the stats to prove - Display Ads Influence Search.

"Display ad campaigns greatly increase clicks on search listings, according to a new study.

Yahoo and online financial services provider Harrisdirect tested the effects of a display ad campaign run across the Yahoo network on search behaviour. The study found users shown Harrisdirect display ads conducted 61 percent more searches relating to financial services. Those shown display ads also clicked on 249 percent more paid search listings and 139 percent more Harrisdirect search listings, both paid and unpaid."

Please note that I'm working for Overture - A Yahoo! Company when reading this. Having said that - This research is relevant for any advertiser. The article will probably be the first of many to come, with other players involved.

Online Advertising vs Traditional Advertising

Two recent articles has pointed out that online advertising is becoming a serious rival to the traditional sort.

The first article in The Economist states that "This year the combined advertising revenues of Google and Yahoo! will rival the combined prime-time ad revenues of America?s three big television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, predicts Advertising Age."

The second is a statement from Jim Spanfeller, the president-CEO of Forbes.com on BtoBOnline.com where he indicates that Forbes.com will surpass the print edition in terms of revenue, probably in about 18 to 20 months".

If you ask me - It's about time that the hours spent online from Internet users, gets reflected in the ad spend from advertisers. For to long they have put the big money into traditional advertising, knowing that the usage of traditional media is dropping in favour for the Internet.

Search Long Tail

Thanks to cheap storage and a flexible architecture, the internet removes many limitations of physical distribution. In retail, it allows for infinite aisles of merchandise.

In Chris Anderson words:
"With no shelf space to pay for and, in the case of purely digital services like iTunes, no manufacturing costs and hardly any distribution fees, a miss sold is just another sale, with the same margins as a hit. A hit and a miss are on equal economic footing, both just entries in a database called up on demand, both equally worthy of being carried."

If the sales distribution has a Long Tail is determined by the cost of inventory storage and distribution. Where inventory storage and distribution costs are low, it's possible to sell unpopular products. When storage and distribution costs are high, only the most popular products can be sold.

For Amazon or ITunes, who has the reach and already are selling the popular products, selling the unpopular products will only improve the average customer spend and their sales revenue. This because the extra cost for selling unpopular products are very low.

However, in order to turn a mass market into a million niche markets, there would be huge marketing costs involved, wouldn't it? Isn't this the reason why niche markets often are overlooked by most company?s? It's also the reason why it might be difficult for Small Businesses and Start-ups to tap into The Long Tail.

Not anymore! - With the introduction of Search Engine Marketing, the marketing costs for reaching niche markets has gone down. It allows advertisers to display their ads related to searches done from Internet user who wants niche products and services. The display of the ad is free and the Advertiser Pay-Per-Click.

Danny Sullivan has written Search Long Tail, explaining why Search Engine Marketers has been interested in Search Long Tail for some time and why the Search Advertising model works well for niche products and services.

By sending this blog, I'd once again would like to point out that I work for Overture - A Yahoo! Company. Please don't let that stop you from reading Danny Sullivan's article, it?s good!

The Long Tail Blog

The The Long Tail has been used by many people who wants to share their vision of how mass markets are turning into millions of niches and how that will affect their industry.

Chris Anderson has created the blog www.thelongtail.com, where he presents some of these articles and blog entry's.

If you want to read articles about the Long Tail, this is a good start.

The Long Tail

The Long Tail is about the shift from hits to niches. Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired Magazine where he described the effects of The Long Tail on current and future business models. Chris observed that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Examples of such mega-stores include Amazon.com and Netflix. The Long Tail is a potential market and enabled by the distribution and sales channel opportunities the Internet creates.

state808

Welcome!

I blog, therefore I am ;-)

First - I'm Swedish. Sometimes my English is not as good as it should be. Sorry for that.

Second - For some reason I can't get some Swedish letters to get published on the web the right way. That's why I write this blog in English.

Third - I'm blogging as a private person. For obvious reasons, I can't discuss Yahoo (who I work for), our advertisers, partners or competitors. How ever - I will sometimes publish news about Yahoo, our advertisers, partners or competitors that I think are important.


Have fun @ state808!

Stefan