Our castle is taking a distinct shape and the refinements are looking good! What is our next step on the final touches you may ask – wiring our new castle so it too can be integral in communication. What cooler environment could there be than one where you can talk to your home. By just the sound of your voice you can activate the lights, turn on audio components, regulate the temperature, make a cup of java or just surf the internet. Your castle is your wireless link to the outside world and you want everything to work together.  This is the same way you should run your client’s media campaigns. Where all avenues, i.e. print, display, digital and search, all work together as one to run a cohesive campaign.

By having a consistent and distinct message across all media buys, you double the chance your product has to be at the top of the consumer’s mind. A great example of successful advertising is ads for Anheuser Busch products. Currently, they are running a “superior drinkability” campaign for Bud Light. So when a commercial is aired, a magazine ad is printed, a banner ad is displayed, the messaging remains consistent and top of mind with the consumers. By making the messaging fun and interesting, while at the same time maintaining consistency, it sparks an interest and remembrance with the consumer. They start talking about it to their friends and co-workers and bringing it up in their Facebook wallboard or they search the internet for your ads or commercials – the messaging is easy to remember. The goal of any successful campaign is that the message being sent remains top of mind with the consumers.

Memorable Messaging

When building your campaign’s message, remember that you have to talk to a varied audience. Use consumer friendly language and do market research, which will enable you to relate to your target consumer. Memorable messaging is one that is short, simple and appealing to the product’s audience.

In closing, use memorable messaging across all media. When we head out to get our wiring needs for the castle, we are going to remember from advertising and word-of-mouth that “Monster” cable is the best, and we only want the best for our castle.

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This post was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, April 10, 2009

Earlier this week, eMarketer published its most recent view on the U.S. advertising space and the spending trends within it. The company noted the point gains being made year over year for digital marketing and explained the impact in its intro as such:

“Digital marketing offers compelling benefits, especially for cash-conscious companies in a recession, because marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media.  This produces more-efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn pushes traditional media to compete with lower pricing.”

So, advertisers are gravitating to more measurable forms of marketing and also looking to channels that produce higher ROI. Makes sense, but when you look at some recent findings from SEMPO’s annual search survey, you start to see a disconnect.

In their ‘08 study, SEMPO asked both advertisers and agencies what metrics they track and the findings were interesting. In the case of brand impact, the agencies surveyed said – by a wide margin (20%+) -  that they measured this more so than the direct advertisers. If marketers are moving dollars online because ROI is better, then why are their agencies worried so much about brand?

It leads to the obvious question. Can search build brands?
Continue reading »

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I recently came across an article in PC World that was somewhat shocking, yet not surprising.  With the booming success of Facebook, MySpace and other social media avenues, there is also an increasing number of People Search Engines.  Some of these search engines include Pipl or Spokeo.  While people may want some of their information viewable by the public, like these posts, one thing people tend to forget is their privacy.  They may even think their privacy settings have been set up appropriately.  People tend to post things out on the web without a second thought of what others may eventually find.

The scary thing about these “People” search engines is they can pull up quite a bit about you.  Things that you didn’t realize were out there.  I took the articles’ suggestion and did a search for myself.  Just like it said, I found my Amazon wish list, my Facebook page with a number of my friends’ smiling faces, along with things I’m a “fan” of and the blog posts that I have done.  I then tried a search using my maiden name, to see what would come up.  My maiden name is somewhat common, but I had no idea there were so many people sharing my name with court cases!  None of which were mine, but if someone wanted to dig up the so-called dirt on me…they could possibly start saying I had a lot of traffic tickets or whatever the case may be.

Search Surveillance

This leads me to my next point, let’s say someone decides to search for you just to get the dirt on you.  Hopefully there aren’t any crazies out there wanting to hunt you down or cause you ill-will.  However, these types of search engines can become potential safety hazards and increase online stalking.  Some of these search engines even charge a nominal fee to unearth those deep dark secrets you thought you posted in private.  Or possibly those juicy secrets you didn’t know you had in the event it is another person sharing your name.

You never know who may be watching you.  It’s frightening to know that these People Search Engines are technically not doing anything illegal.  Besides you are the one posting these things.   You just might not be aware that it is open to the public.  Luckily, with the privacy settings that may be hidden deep within whatever it is you are on, you can block these search engines from going any further.  Again, the only saving grace here is that you may either have a super common name or similar name that it will show search results for a variety of people.

Although it may not be that exciting to know that I have a “Nirvana” and “Jazz” radio station set up on Pandora or what I have on my wish list for Amazon, it was still out there for someone to find.  Thankfully I came across this article and after finding out all about me, I immediately went in and set these to private.  Check out these two articles by JR Raphael to help prevent what you want private from being posted to the public:

People Search Engines: “They Know Your Dark Secrets…and Tell Anyone”

People Search Engines: “Slam the Door on What Info They can Collect”

Take precautions with what you post.  Speak your mind, but be mindful of what you want people to see.  Now, what do you want people to find about YOU?

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As the first quarter of 2009 comes to a close, it may be an opportune time for some marketers to revisit and re-evaluate the marketing budgets you’ve laid out for the rest of the year. Why? With so many changes taking place in the economic climate, you need to be able to adapt and change as well, and basing your budget off of previous years might not cut it.

Whether it’s money spent on groceries, entertainment or your kids’ allowances, budgets across the country are tightening and the same goes for marketing budgets. Simply basing your current budget on last year’s won’t work, because consumer spending and behavior is very different. However, instead of looking at this as an obstacle to be overcome, search marketers should view this as an opportunity. When budgets are being spread thin and every dollar needs to count, ROI is more important than ever. In many ways, search is more cost efficient than other forms of traditional advertising and it’s more accountable. Shifting budget from other media outlets to online is a great way to cut costs and improve ROI.

You should take into consideration what you’re doing in other marketing efforts when you evaluate how much to spend in search. Have you allocated enough search dollars to capture all the traffic that will be generated by your offline efforts? Failing to do so is a missed opportunity and is not making the most of your search campaign or your offline marketing. Creating an integrated, holistic marketing plan is more than ensuring consistent messaging between on and offline, but is also taking into consideration the impact one has on the other when allocating marketing dollars.

Budget for Efficiency and Relevance

One thing to consider is that if you’re planning to increase cost efficiency by shifting budget into search, your competitors probably are as well. While this makes it even more important for you to ensure you have a presence online, increased competition can also lead to increased cost. There are ways, however, that you can minimize these increases.

Ensuring that your ads are relevant and well-targeted can help you improve your quality score, and keeping your CPCs relatively low allows you to break through the clutter of your competitors. Make sure that your ad copy and landing pages are relevant to the keywords that you’re bidding on. This will keep your quality score up. Also, consider other targeting options, such as if it would be more efficient to geo-target your campaigns to reach consumers in specific regions or cities, rather than running nationally.

Cutting costs doesn’t have to mean cutting ROI, and this is a great time to revisit your marketing budget allocation and see how you can use your online marketing to leverage your offline efforts and maximize your results.

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Yahoo! has launched an exciting new paid search product called Rich Ads in Search, or RAIS.  RAIS is a program where an advertiser can “buy” the top placement in the Yahoo! SERPS for their branded terms.  This hard-mapping top placement features an advanced ad which may include deep links, an image or even video.

While this is considered to be a paid search product, the “payment” factor works a little differently.  Instead of setting max and min bids for your keywords, an advertiser would pay a monthly subscription fee for the placement.   At the time of this being written, the current subscription fee is at a minimum $20K-$25K to upwards of $60K per month.  We have seen Yahoo! alter these numbers since RAIS was first offered to a handful of clients, so it is likely these may change again in the future.

With the product in beta, targeting is only offered to the U.S. and there are no filters you can apply to it the same way you can with traditional sponsored search.   An advertiser is able to run in RAIS and also continue to bid on their branded terms in sponsored search at the same time.

Yahoo! Rich Ads Still in Beta

Because Rich Ads in Search is still in beta, it is important to keep in mind that as time goes on, Yahoo! will most likely alter and enhance how it operates and how users and advertisers alike are able to interact with the ads.   Initial reports from Yahoo! state one test advertiser in January 2009 saw a 395% lift in CTR and a 20% lift in CVR.  Another report from Yahoo! states a different advertiser saw a 15% increase in CTR and a 20% increase in conversions over their traditional search results.

Rich Ads in Search are showing signs of being a great addition to an advertiser’s search engine marketing initiatives.  It is a strong vehicle for clients to own the search space for their brand and be front of mind to searchers.  The utility for business objectives is virtually endless; brand pushes, promotions, awareness, reputation management, etc.  If the estimated revenue projections outweigh the cost and align the cost per conversion with client goals, Rich Ads in Search is a space an advertiser should be exploring.  Yahoo! is giving us a clear glimpse into the future of paid search and search engine marketing in general.  Users are searching differently, the digital space is changing, and what people want to see when they are looking is evolving.  It’s obvious from the results; searchers want to see a little more.  We can send a big Thank You to Yahoo! for this learning.

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