Marketing for Success - Mike Vilimek

Yahoo Unveils Apt, a New Display Ad Platform

Yahoo has just launched their new much anticipated advertising platform called Apt. This is Yahoo’s latest attempt to grab a piece of the huge online advertising market that Google has dominated for so long.

While Google’s Adwords platform has focused on advertising based on search terms, Apt will focus more on display ads. Yahoo claims the platform will allow advertisers and publishers to buy and sell display ads while using the same type of easy self-service features that helped make Adwords so successful. Yahoo also hopes that by using data they already collect on user’s preferences, advertisers will be able to better target their campaigns.

Apt will only be open to a select group of newspaper companies initially, with availability to other publishers and advertisers to begin in early 2009.

I’m a huge fan of Adwords' do-it-yourself functionalities and the concept of being able to do something similar for display ads could be very powerful. Yahoo could certainly use the boost.

From TV to Internet and Back Again

It’s no secret that over the past few years a strong trend emerged of advertising dollars being shifted from traditional mainstream media such as TV and newspapers over to online advertising. This makes Google’s recent announcement all the more interesting.

Google and NBC Universal said they’re teaming up to allow Google to sell advertisements on some of NBC’s cable channels such as MSNBC, Oxygen, and the Sci Fi network. Both companies gain from the deal with Google wanting to sell ads someplace other than just beside their search results and NBC gaining access to advertisers who currently advertise online through Google.

Is this a sign of the future? Will marketers be able to setup a Google advertising account and select which portion gets displayed online and which portion goes to TV? Too early to tell, but the problem of quantifying traffic and ROI generated from TV ads will still be difficult compared to that of PPC models.

Landing Pages

Where do your PPC ads link to? They should link to a page specifically designed to function as an extension of your PPC ad campaign, often called a landing page. They are not generally part of your existing website and are not linked through the site map. Landing pages usually have 2 purposes:

1.       Reinforce the message of the PPC ad and encourage the visitor on to a goal conversion.

2.       Allow you to track how effectively your PPC ads are drawing qualified traffic and how well you are converting that traffic.

You should have a unique landing page that is tailored for each unique PPC ad campaign. The landing page must provide what your PPC ad promised or you risk having a large bounce rate.

Think like one of your buyers. What information do they need to reach their goal? That’s the information you should provide. But don’t overcrowd the page, you don’t want to the buyer to become distracted. Make the next step within your conversion process the most prominent feature. Eg. If your goal is for visitors to sign-up for a newsletter, then the sign-up form should be front and centre.

As with PPC ads themselves, you should be experimenting with different landing pages and testing to see which ones are the most effective. It should be an ongoing process that never really finishes.

Information Overload

Recently, the PFF Blog reported that Google CEO Eric Schmidt made the following 2 points during a speech at the Milken Conference:

1.       Users of Google's YouTube are uploading 10 hours of video to the site every minute. That's 14,400 hours worth of new video uploads each day.

2.       By 2019, your average iPod (or other personal digital device) will have enough capacity for 85 years worth of video. Start watching when you're born. Maybe you'll see the final credits in old-age.

With more and more content vying for attention, how will your marketing message break through the clutter? The key will be messages that are short, memorable and contain a visual component. Also try to offer something of value to consumers in addition to your marketing message, such as amazing footage within a video or hilarious content. This could help your message go viral.

Advertising on Social Networks

The amount of traffic that social network sites draw makes many marketers drool. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others all have large loyal user bases that often logon daily. The opportunity to get that many eyeballs seeing your ad has made advertising on social networks a hot topic.

Traffic aside, they also allow marketers the ability to specifically target which users see their ads. Users on these sites create detailed profiles that give marketers precise information on who fits within their target market and therefore who will see their ads.

So what’s the problem? To date, advertising on these sites has produced mixed results. Sure, some have found success, but it’s not the sure thing many had hoped. The problem may be the very reason for their popularity. Users visit these sites to interact with their friends and share content. They are so highly engaged with their network of friends, it makes it hard for them to be distracted by ads, resulting in very low click through rates.

Monitor Your Online Reputation

Whether it’s simply setting up Google Alerts notices, or hiring specialists such as BuzzLogic or Radian6, your company needs to be aware of what’s being said about it online.  Social media conversations including blogs, microblogs and viral videos can effect a company’s reputation almost overnight. Can your company afford not to monitor these conversations, or better yet, get involved?

Dell is a perfect example of a company that has taken their online reputation very seriously. In 2006, the company was getting lambasted by tech bloggers and in online forums for their terrible customer service.  Today, they reportedly have a 42 person team monitoring and engaging individuals and communities who have something to say about Dell. If negative comments are posted online about Dell, someone from their team is quick to get involved in the conversation and at the very least, make people feel as if Dell cares and wants to help.

Has any of this work paid off? A study conducted by Visible Technologies revealed that negative sentiment toward the Dell brand has dropped from 48% in 2006 to 23% today. Not all of this can be attributed solely to their involvement in online conversations, but it certainly appears they are on the right track.

Writing for Your Buyers

When writing press releases, blogs, or website content, it seems too many companies use words and phrases that mean nothing to their most important audience, their buyers. Have you used the following terms in your recent communications? Flexible, robust, world class, cutting-edge, groundbreaking, turnkey, the list goes on and on. Do you think these terms mean anything to your customers? Well they don’t. They are so overused and meaningless; they don’t provide any value in your communications.

Every time your company communicates with the outside world, regardless of the medium, use it as an opportunity to connect with your buyers. Think of the problems that your customers face and the language in which they would use. Communicate less about the features of your product and more about solving your buyers’ problems. This will also improve your visibility in search engines, as potential buyers will search for solutions to their problems using their own language. Can you image someone searching for a turnkey, flexible, robust solution? I don’t think so.

Before releasing any content, always ask yourself, “Am I writing for my buyers?”

Are Your Customers Happy With Your Website?

Having spent some time in Montreal, I recently heard from a colleague about a company with offices here called iPerceptions. The company focuses on optimizing and improving websites by using customer feedback through online experiences.

What caught my attention was their simple, but powerful initial approach for clients. They encourage you to ask your website visitors 4 questions:

1. Who is coming to your website?
2. Why are they there?
3. How are you doing?
4. What do you need to fix?

Do you know the answers to these questions? Your visitors do. And their answers can significantly improve your site.

Google Launches New Browser – Chrome

Google is taking aim at Microsoft’s dominance in the Internet browser segment with the launch of their new free Internet browser, titled Chrome. Why should this concern you as a marketer? Because a key differentiator between Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer revolves around ad targeting and user privacy. Microsoft’s latest version, Internet Explorer 8, allows surfers to hide their Internet address and viewing history - often called "porn mode." This represents a threat to Google who attempts to pinpoint its search results to a user's interests, resulting in more efficient ad targeting. With Microsoft owning 72% of the browser market, Google sees a threat in losing their ability to collect valuable ad targeting information.

The war for Internet browser dominance has been waging for quite some time. What’s new is that a key battle within this war will focus on efficient ad targeting versus user privacy.

Employee Blogs + Anonymity = Trouble

As a result of an employee’s personal blog, Cisco Systems has become the target of a libel lawsuit. The blog in question, titled Patent Troll Tracker (has since been password protected), was written by Rick Frenkel, director of Cisco’s intellectual property department. The blog focused on patent and patent litigation, but allegedly tarnished the names and trivialized a patent case a group had filed against Cisco.  The biggest problem however was Frenkel didn’t divulge his identity or roll with the company and didn’t make a clear distinction between his own views and those of Cisco’s.

Since the lawsuit, Cisco added the following rule to its Internet posting policies, “If you comment on any aspect of the company's business or any policy issue the company is involved in where you have responsibility for Cisco's engagement, you must clearly identify yourself as a Cisco employee in your postings or blog site(s) and include a disclaimer that the views are your own and not those of Cisco."

Employee blogs are a great way for companies to connect with their customers. While it remains vital for employee’s voices not to be filtered by marketing/pr departments resulting in safe, but boring corporate messaging, there does have to be a balance. Making sure employees don’t hide their identities and their connections to topics discussed should be a “common sense” rule.