I always believe that marketing should be effective. This is true regardless of it being online, above-the-line or below-the-line. There are many ways that you can be effective in marketing. One of the ways is to throw a lot of money at a top agency and get them to do something clever.
Another way is to take a look at this power supply repair company and see how they have taken their core business and put it online. This is serious business. Some might even say, it is boring business. Even the web site is lacking in glitz. Yet, one look at the page and the message is crystal clear - it is all about power supply repair.
Compared with some of the more graphics-heavy sites, this certainly looks boring. But if you are desperately racking your brains to find a solution to your problems, would you sit through a 30-second Flash, followed by a whatever number of seconds wait for the java-scripted, shock-waved, web 2.0 site to slowly and laboriously “open”? Or would you prefer it loaded right up, straight and simple, and show you the words you have been dying to hear: “Get Your Damaged Power Supply Repaired By Expert Techs”.
One of the most interesting aspects of online marketing, is the fact that there is no such thing as the “one way” to do anything. Even a simple, almost childish activity like “blogging”, has evolved and have grown to encompass so much of our online lives.
Affiliate marketing was one of the hottest topics in online marketing for many years. While you would expect the hubbard to die down after so many years, the fact is, affiliate marketing is still going strong. In fact, more and more avenues have opened to allow affiliate marketers more freedom to be doing what they like, and still reap the benefits of affiliate marketing. Blogging is exactly one more media for affiliate marketers. Mark has an excellent article on how bloggers can make money over at his site titled “Affiliate Blogging for Profit: Monetizing Your Blog“. While to some, this might not be any earth shattering news, yet, it does contain simple insights that will definitely help the budding online marketer.
If you have been following some of the real estate news around the world, you would surely have noticed the furore that was the Home Information Pack requirement laid out by the UK government.
There are many reasons why reactions have been so strong. One of the reasons given by some quarters pointed to the short notice period that they were given to comply. But of course, other groups disagree, citing the fact that they already had information packs for many years. Even the Law Society has taken a stand as it affects the roles of solicitors in the proceedings.
But in the end, no matter what laws exists and even if you are presented with a Home Information Pack, it is still prudent to do your own research regarding the new home which you are about to buy. As they say in sales and marketing, “caveat emptor“.
If you have ever wondered whether entrepreneurs are born or made, I doubt if you will find the answer here. However, you will find honest to goodness responses to this question from real-life entrepreneurs. Now, that is way better than any text-book answer or even those high-fangled “research”. This is real.
Here is an interesting take on conventional wisdom vis-a-vis using sex in advertisements that was posted on Versa Creation’s blog. Of course, we can argue about ethics and morals, but more importantly, is it effective?
I guess guys would be more tuned in to such ads than women. But on the other hand, if not tastefully done, even guys will get put off by the ad (OK, some of the guys would). So, while it is exciting and a little bit naughty, think twice before employing “sex” in your marketing.
Many marketers are familiar with either traditional marketing or with online marketing. This is not very surprising, since computers did not even exist in its present form when many of the “seniors” in the industry today were in school. While this situation is rapidly changing, it is still true in many instances today. The online marketing experts appear to be a little better off in terms of understanding both marketing and online methodologies.
But many online marketing experts also seem to forget that good marketing contains key elements that cut across the media. Of course, things like SEO, graphics optimization and such are not relevant to offline media. But there are elements that are. What then are some of these “common” key elements of marketing? In my opinion, the following are key elements that cut across both online as well as offline marketing:
- effective hook (often confused as the value proposition) - value proposition - good copywriting (headlines, sub-heads, body…) - good design (graphics, layout, colors…)
I saw this Jewellery website that seems to get it right on several counts. Not only is the site well designed, it incorporates elements of good SEO on top of the above 4 key elements. As time goes by, I guess more and more marketers will “get it”, then we will be seeing many more “good” sites as opposed to the other kind.
I think this is really a good discussion. Marketing is really fun in today’s dynamic world. With the online elements coming mainstream, marketers today not only have more tools to use, they also have more considerations. Building communities would definitely be one of the considerations of any modern marketing team. But seriously, how many of them really understand this? Just because the Marketing Manager has a Facebook or Friendster account, does not mean that they know how to “build communities”.
There are companies with so much phobia about communicating, they even warn employees NOT to have blogs. You can read about the transparency stuff over at Sassy Maven’s blog. For me, I want to talk about marketing strategy. Where, exactly where, do you think you want to go with your so-called “community”. Marketers need to understand that communicating with their various publics is a critical activity that should not be left to chance. Just putting together a portal with news, downloads, discussion forum or maybe even a chat box; does not make it a community portal. And building communities is not an online phenomena.
Now that this social science has crossed over into the marketing arena, it would be interesting to see how marketers are going to deal with this. Many are jumping on the train. Problem is, are they on the right train, and did they buy the right ticket?
If you are thinking of creating a community for your company, product or service, it’s a great idea. But before you do anything, learn exactly what kind of creature you are going to unleash. And, if after petting its fur and examining its claws, you still want one, go for it.
Here is an interesting article about the co-relationship between exercise and the brain:
Fred H. Gage, lead researcher of the study and Adler professor at the Salk Institute. “Our own research revealed that physical exercise increases the birth and survival of new brain cells in the mouse hippocampus, a brain area important for learning and memory.”
Here is an interesting food-for-thought - for a leader to be a “good” leader, must the leader be a willing leader?
Think about all those anti-heroes. The unwilling saviour. The reluctant chieftain. The accidental leader. If a person has strong leadership traits, have the competencies of a leader, gets the respect and fellowship of the people; yet am unwilling to lead. Will this person be a good leader?
In the modern world, we see candidates fighting for votes, colleagues vying for promotion, volunteers squabbling for power; they want to be leaders. Will they, because of their burning desire to lead, make a better leader than someone more competent, but unwilling?
My brother-in-law lives in Sydney. I remember the days when it was actually easy to book a flight there. But in recent years, Australia has become such a popular destination that it is becoming more difficult to book flights to Australia as easily as I used to be able to do.
Holidays in Australia are great. Cost effective, not too far, and flights to Australia were not too hard to book. But if you want to know how to market a country, watch how these Australians did it. Their campaigns to promote Australia as both a holiday destination and a business center have been very successful indeed! Fortunately, we are able to use DialAFlight to make quick bookings. I took a look at their web site. They are much more focused on the holiday crowd, with cheap flights, holiday offers and car rentals catering more to those activities than a business visit. But I guess mixing business with pleasure and taking a side trip to the Gold Coast might not be too bad an idea.
Actually, the ability to simply call up and speak to a knowledgeable expert and plan your holiday trip right there on the phone, is really a nice touch. But I believe that if they were to allow you to book directly online instead of calling, it will be sure to explode their sales in some of the more common or standard packages. After all, marketing online is great; but selling online is even better!
I must say, advertising and marketing has always been my “dream job”. I strongly suspect that it has always been my secret aspiration NOT to do commercials like this one…
But I really got to admit… it’s loads of fun! Who wants to do the sequel!?
For those of you who are “PhotoShop-challenged” like me, you might want to take a look at this post by Kailani where she introduces the PicaJet Photo Organiser. Seems like a good and lazy way to get photos organised and have them be enhanced automatically. Of course for the professionals, they will be glad to know that whatever “auto” adjustments done, will only apply to the display of the image, the original remains intact. There are powerful features for sharing and photo management. So I would guess this to be having something for everyone. Have fun!
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