Internet Marketing Blog

What Alec Baldwin Taught Me about Online Marketing

Enjoy these great online marketing techniques and social marketing tactics by famous movie star - Alec Baldwin!!!

Many would argue that it is the greatest 7 minutes in the history of cinema. It is certainly one of the finest speeches ever documented on film. In the 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin plays role of Blake, a super-salesman who was sent to motivate 3 underperforming real estate salesmen. Blake’s profanity laden speech is far from your typical motivational speech, but it taught me everything I need to know about online marketing.

Baldwin begins his speech by telling the sales people to stop complaining about the leads they have blown. He places the blame for their lack of success squarely on their shoulders, and says the customers are just waiting to buy their product but they don’t know how to sell it. To quote Baldwin, “A customer doesn’t walk on the lot (or your website) lest he wants to buy.” Baldwin then launches into the ABC’s of sales.

• Always
• Be
• Closing

If you want to compete in the ever expanding online market, your internet marketing needs to be targeted at closing the sale. You need to “always be closing.” Let the customer know why they need your product, and make it easy for them to buy it. Don’t make your customer jump through 20 hoops just to find the checkout page. If you aren’t always closing the sale, your potential customer will leave your website for one of your competitors.

The egomaniac Blake continues his speech on selling by telling the sales people about “AIDA.” This is another sales abbreviation that we can apply to SEM. Sure, a lot goes into carrying out a successful online advertising campaign, but Baldwin really sums it all up on his little chalkboard.

• Attention- The first thing you need to focus on is getting your customer’s attention. If you do not get their attention, they will not give your business the time of day. The internet is full of companies vying for users’ attention so you need to separate yourself from the competition. You can do this by creating compelling headlines, good descriptions, gripping PPC ads, and quality content
• Interest- After you get the customer’s attention, you need to make sure they are interested in your product. If they are not interested, the customer will walk away. This is where creating persuasive content comes into play. You need to convince the customer that they have a big problem, and that you are the only one that can solve that problem.
• Decision- Now that you have piqued the customer’s interest, you need to help them make the decision. As I mentioned before, you need to tell them they have a problem, and now they must decide that they want to fix it. Customers are more cautious buying products online than in person, so to help them make the decision you should let them know they can trust you. In other words, don’t be gimmicky and make promises that sound too good to be true. Just make your case in a convincing, but logical, manner.
• Action- If you have accomplished the above steps, now you have to get your customer to take action. In the online market, this is what it all comes down to. Anyone who has even a passing knowledge of online marketing has heard the term “call to action.” It’s not enough to convince your customers they should think about buying your product; you must persuade them into buying your product right now. You need to make it easy for your customers to take action. It should be just one simple step to purchase an item, no more.

So, if you haven’t been following these steps, put that coffee down! Coffee is for closers only!

Posted by dali
Posted in Online Advertising | 1 Comment »
Tags: , Internet Marketing, online advertising, online marketing

The Results are in! Webware 100 Awards 2008

Over 1.9 million votes were cast for the 300 finalists of Webware 100 Awards this year. These finalists were selected (by Webware editors) from a pool of over 5000 qualifying nominees.

Congrats to Amazon.com, who took 1^st place in Music, Video and Podcasting, Commerce and Events!

Firefox is the new leader in web browsing so it’s no suprise that it came in 1st for Browsing. Hats off to Bebo and Deviant Art for winning in Social Media; AIM for Communication Service and Answers.com for Searches and References.

Just slightly more than half of all the votes cast in the Webware 100 went to the top 10 vote-getters. Six of these top 10 are no surprise at all: Facebook, Firefox, Google, iTunes, MySpace, and YouTube.

Many of the winners this year were also Webware 100 winners last year, although the tough competition did knock some of last year’s winners off the list (thankfully, otherwise the results would be quite boring). Next year we’ll do more to give startups and new products a chance to win an award.

I was surprised to see Digg not garner a winning number of votes. Likewise with Plaxo and Ning, two strong companies with active social networks.

And personally, I really wanted Blist or Mixx, which is brand new, to win an award, but being great isn’t enough to win a popular vote - you have to be known. Oh well, 2009 is just around the corner!

Posted by dali
Posted in Business News, Website Analytics, World | No Comments »
Tags: awards, web awards, webware 100 awards

Can I Get a Degree in Facebook?

A new faculty in Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley has turned their attention towards a new course that blends modern culture and social media psychology. So now students prepare to learn the secrets of Facebook and other social aspects of modern web.

The Psychology of Facebook is the brainchild of Professor BJ Fogg, a pioneering persuasion psychologist who founded the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford. Professor Fogg says the pivotal moment came when he watched an application on the site go from “literally zero to more than a million users in a week”.

“Where on earth could you get a million customers in a week? That was when I said ‘I want to learn more about this’ and I thought the best way was to teach a class and look at how persuasion happens.”

Creating tools, applications and developing social aspects of Facebook to increase popularity - that’s what they are doing in Stanford University. You don’t have to have any Ivy League education to know that this is smart business.

Posted by arman
Posted in Social Media Marketing, World | No Comments »
Tags: facebook, social media

Going Green - the 21st Century’s Biggest Corporate Trend

An old cliché is catching on in a whole new way

Dell’s ad campaign is just the latest in a string of “go green” initiatives that are seeking the favor of environmentally conscious customers by focusing on minimizing the negative effects that products can have on our world.

The idea of “green” and keeping the planet safe from the effects of pollution is as old as the ’60s, so why is it only now that major corporations have caught on? As with most things related to business, the answer lies in cash and in consumer demand. Over the past couple years, a small but strong set of customers have proven that they are willing to spend more money on products that benefit the environment, and they are more likely to shop with companies that do the same. That has sent a direct message to corporate America – going green is profitable.

What are some of the products of this movement?

The most prescient, of course, is Dell’s “Green” ad campaign, which has included placement in such major periodicals as BusinessWeek, Time, and the Wall Street Journal. The campaign emphasized services and products focused on slashing energy consumption 45 percent and featured olive green, black and white coloring.

On the transportation end of things, companies around the world are creating products that reduce the energy needed to get from place to place. Japan’s latest high-speed train is 19 percent more energy efficient than its predecessor thanks to a highly streamlined design. The Mini Clubman, a crossover vehicle meant to allow Mini lovers to store more gear, gets 32 m.p.g. (compare that to that to the latest SUVs) and the Smart ForTwo car, with its 41 m.p.g., is about to hit the US market.

Other big green initiatives include “Too Precious to Wear,” a campaign by Tiffany & Co. and other major jewelry stores to raise keep Coral out of jewelry and in the ocean where it is needed; “Earth Pledge” a fabric house devoted to making organic fabrics refined enough to be used by fashion designers; and “The Blue Project,” a collaboration between Kerzner International, American Express, Bahamas National Trust, and others to save the world’s reefs.

So what does it mean for companies? Successful companies in the future are the ones who will make a name for themselves in earth-orientated initiatives. Customers are at last putting their money where their mouths are, and its time companies took notice. Not only are green initiatives good long-term, sustainable strategies, but they also make for positive PR, and generate affection among consumers towards the brand.

What about customers? First of all, it means that customers have choice. If a customer cares about the environment, then he or she has the opportunity to support companies that have shown they feel the same way. Customers also get a chance to push other companies in the same direction by refusing to spend money on companies that ignore the needs of the environment.

Want more information on this topic? Send us an email at info[@]bluelinerny.com to request a presentation on cutting edge strategies retailers are using to reflect customer concerns about the environment.

Care for the environment is something that has an effect on us all.

Posted by arman
Posted in Business News, World, green marketing | No Comments »
Tags: business, environment, go green, green marketing, technology, trends, twenty-first century

Facebook Applications - The New Interactive Marketing Trend

What commercial businesses are doing to capitalize on a unique platform

The industry for Facebook applications has exploded since the dramatic moment when Mark Zuckerburg first announced that he would make the programming that supported the popular social network available to programmers (see “Facebook’s FoodFight: A Marketer’s Data Dream Field“). But although wildly popular (there are currently 19,290 applications available to users) no one has really figured out an effective way to make money off of them. As Skype discovered the hard way, offering customers a free product is poor incentive for those same customers to upgrade at a cost.

The ultimate answer may lie in the pocketbooks of marketers. Although intrinsically a poor source for profit, facebook applications are a powerful, powerful marketing tool. Far less expensive than other internet-based marketing techniques, and far more engaging for customers, applications represent the next major evolution in interactive marketing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by dali
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »
Tags: application marketing, facebook, facebook applications, Interactive Marketing, Interactive Media, social media, social networking

Make Your Website’s Graphic Design Effective in 2008

“Strike the eye, Seduce the mind”

That phrase, coined by prominent national artist and professor Marc Dennis, is, or should be, the mantra of all marketing related visual materials. While messaging is key in marketing materials in order to generate sales, a strong message will be lost or wasted if it is set in a visual design that does not also engage the viewer.

This is especially true with web sites, since the interactive nature of that marketing medium has vast potential for enthralling the viewer. Extensive studies have shown that customers who enjoy or like an advertising piece instantaneously create a positive association with the brand. This effected is multiplied ten or twenty fold on a web site because of the comprehensive interaction between a consumer and the web site’s branding as the consumer moves through a site.

Thus it is key that the visual design of a web site be treated as much like a work of art as a mode for sending a message

To aid the marketer in creating a web site that seduces the minds of customers via striking visual imagery, I present four key principles for successful design. These principles largely stem from the confluence of traditional design techniques and studies in consumer behavior that uncovered key visual stimuli that attract attention.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by dali
Posted in Graphic Design, Marketing, Online Advertising, Website Design | 1 Comment »
Tags: Graphic Design, Marketing, visual design, Website Design, website design in 2008, website marketing

Marketing in a Recession

Wow, what a year 2008 is so far. With a heated race for the White House, the largest viewership of any Super Bowl to date (a consistent 97 million), not to mention the outcome, and the largest Internet merger looms. That’s the good, the bad is the sub prime housing market credit debacle, traditional energy crisis (oil and other natural ores) and thus, the threat of a recession.

In the last 25 years the United States has showed substantial economic expansion, widely considered the worlds most powerful economy. The only major blips on that growth were in 1991 with the collapse of junk bonds, which caused a credit crunch and in 2001 with the dotcom crash, September 11th attacks and accounting scandals. In the minds of many a business operative these were periods of recessions. However during these times the GDP (gross domestic product) did not fall for two seceding periods and thus the last official recession was in 1982 and 1983, caused by tight monetary policy in the U.S. to control inflation and sharp correction to overproduction of the previous decade which had been masked by inflation.

What does it mean to businesses facing a recession in 2008? Recessions are interesting times, and studies show that recessions can make companies just as often as break them. A study, from 2004 of 700 U.S. companies that weathered the 1991 recession, found that twice as many made the leap from laggards to leaders in their sectors during the downturn, as during surrounding periods of economic calm.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by arman
Posted in Business News, Small Business, World | 1 Comment »
Tags: recession, recession marketing

Marketing News: The Rebirth of The Industry Standard

The once mighty must during web 1.0 has returned - The Industry Standard. Starting in 1998 it quickly rose to sell a record 7,558 advertising pages in 2000, making it 300 pages. The unfortunate victim of the dotcom crash it was bought up by IDG in bankruptcy court for $1 million and left to sit till now.

“We found that the brand had quite a bit of equity left,” says Derek Butcher, General Manager of The Industry Standard. “People remembered what the brand stood for before. Still, there’s obviously going to be a new generation of people who have no idea what it is.”

“We’ll have news coverage, but mainly from other sources such as IDG and bloggers,” says Butcher. “The area where we will try to differentiate ourselves is on the analysis side.”

Their motto this time is Predict the Future and they present a new way to consider the future. It’s by getting registered users to predict news stories and even suggest things to predict. Beyond valuable to any internet marketing and analysis.

They give users $100,000 in credits at registration to place yeah or nay bets on stories and new technologies. If things go the way you chose to predict you get more credits. Topics range from what will Yahoo, Google and Facebook do to Ad spending will shift from impression to performance-based marketing in 2008. If you predict correctly you can then apply them to prizes and increase your web cred. “The cool thing about prediction markets is that they do seem to be pretty accurate,” Butcher says. “It’s an effective way of forecasting.”

It seems that TIS is just in time to propel us further towards the next phase of the web or web 3. Building on the web 2.0 social networking phenomenon, folks argue web 3 is shaping up to be a phase of recommendation, customization and with the increased influx of ad revenue formally with television, rich, glossy and fast.

TIS out of the gate, looks and acts great. The site is well designed and implements a lot of the social networking standards we’ve come to enjoy. The bulk of the analysis is top notch and the breadth of the writers is wide and concise. The topics range from what company will be acquired next to what’s new in search engine optimization to technology infrastructure topics.

It should quickly be bookmarked by anyone in the technology industry and those like myself should also register, so you can start predicting. For the ability to predict the future is always valuable for business. To bad the Industry Standard had to go away for all those years.

Posted by arman
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: ids, marketing industry news, the industry standard

Yahoo Microsoft! Yahoo Google!

What does it Take to Topple a Search King?

It was last week that I was talking a group on my friends about the state of Yahoo!, and what to expect from the company at a users perspective. It didn’t look good. With shares falling, job cuts looming and an increasing sense of user disapproval, Yahoo was then and is now mired in a fiscal crisis.

Now their name has become a beacon of press, swirling around the likes of Microsoft and Google. In what is shaping up to be one of the biggest and complicated mergers in Internet history. The Google of the late 90’s, Yahoo is being offered a shoulder to live on.

They however didn’t invite it and it is being backed into a corner, a place Yahoo is not used to, nor taking lightly. Last week Microsoft put in a hostile offer of $44.6 billion dollars for Yahoo and when Yahoo chief Jerry Yang, got the phone call he was in a meeting with other operating officers and ready to call it a night. When Mr. Yang hung up the phone that meeting spread into the night, discussing what this meant for their corporate brand.

Yahoo feels that Microsoft’s offer is undervaluing the company at $31 a share, and have tried to reinstated its talks with Google, Fox, AT&T and AOL hoping to increase the buyout. But with the US facing another Recession, beating the $44 billion offer is looking slim and news is that complicated assistance funding would be the terms of offers from Google. Microsoft is urging Yahoo to accept its bid and staying private is a grim alternative.

Google, already with 62% of the worldwide Internet search market (Yahoo 6%, Microsoft 2%), will bring strong attention from corporate regulators and will drift ever so heavily on the antitrust line, if it seeks to buy Yahoo. Google says that the merger with Microsoft “will stifle innovation and leverage its dominating Windows operating system to set up personal computers so consumers are automatically steered to online services, such as e-mail and instant messaging, controlled by the world’s largest software maker.” Another argument for antitrust regulators.

Realizing that whatever happens with Yahoo and its new parent company, it will take time to regulate the merger. Once that transition happens advertisers will be looking at a huge place to put their messages. Like the creation of RCA, Timer-Warner, CBS, and NBC in the last century. The Yahoo merger is a signal of media resources combining to equal the cultures trend in a time of great information expansion.

This merger will bring the final bell for traditional markets to the new ones of the Web 2.0 world and bring us further to Web 3. Together Yahoo and Microsoft are far ahead of Google in email and instant messaging and would dominate in that vast direct market. Not to mention that other huge new market, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game system, which has its own live internet service for players and considered the leader in that multi-billion dollar next generation Video Game industry . Microsoft having Yahoo’s visitor and user bases would propel the software powerhouse into the Internet search and advertising market race in a strong way.

Its an all out search engine ad revenue war, with Microsoft looking to delve further into the online experience by making a strong #2 to Google, who is looking to stay king of the hill. The battle for search dollars is on and advertisers should be thrilled at that fact. The ability to get into the markets of two advertising heavy weights for the cost of one is a data diamond mine. Which in contrast is good for smaller start-ups looking to spread their brand quickly and effectively. So start making your plans for a powerful shift in where you can focus your marketing strategies.

Posted by admin
Posted in Online Advertising | No Comments »
Tags: ad revenue, Corporate Branding, google, internet, mergers, Microsoft, search engines, Social Marketing, social networking, Yahoo

President 2.0

Considered one of the longest campaigns in American history, beginning nearly two years prior to the election day. The 2008 race for the White House is crowded and full of interactive PR, social media, new internet marketing, new avenues of media revenue and voter attraction.

Diverging from previous campaigns where a candidate was considered progressive if they had an online presence, in 2008 it is imperative for a candidate to have a focused online strategy. If a candidate lacks complex online marketing strategies and an army of social networking minions applying web 2.0 efforts they are behind the curve and if they don’t have an online presence they might as well concede the race.

Largely pioneered by Howard Dean in 2004, the battle for voters online has become a hotly contested one. Each of the major Democratic and Republican candidates has established a web presence and has made it a vital part of their campaign, garnering record online contributions to their campaigns (Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Barak Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney).

Primary results aside, Congressman Ron Paul is leading the charge in this web 2.0 world: in two months, a user video for Paul caught 16,000 views, making it the sixth most popular of 2007; he’s got a Twitter feed and a Justin.tv lifecast; 5,589 fans on Facebook; and a staff that makes a clutter-less or seizure free MySpace page. Yes, Ron Paul has it all 2.0 and it’s translating into dollars. On Guy Fawkes Day, he set a record for one-day fund raising by a Republican, gathering $4.2 million from online sources. Six weeks later he hit $6 million in one day.

If we look at the other side of the coin. The Democratic Senator Obama raised $6.9 million—more than a quarter of his total—over the Internet from more than 50,000 online donors, a base of supporters his campaign hopes to cultivate into regular givers. Obama is also setting records because the campaign contributions that he is receiving are coming from small donations online and adding up to big dollars. His campaign said 90 percent of the online contributions were for $100 or less. Not to mention the user generated “Obama Girl” and the viral support it generated for him. Remember the Sopranos video spoof Hillary posted on her site that went totally viral? Some might argue it was a first of its kind and that it is more valuable than bigger budget TV ad’s.

In what is shaping up to be a huge year for youth turn out, having a strong online presence is vital to reaching possible like minded individuals. Perhaps the electoral college is proving necessary after all. With it being harder to get the attention of everyone, the candidates are having to reach further into the web 2.0 fabric to garner support.

I’m sure that in this age of information the other candidates are learning from each others campaigns, and they are trying to get as much influence in as they can before the Nominations in late August and early September. Which will finally bring closure to a marathon run for election day.

Paul or Obama may go the way of Dean, but their efforts illustrate two things: creative and serious investments in social media sites get seen and these online forays into social networking can provide major returns. Marketing Companies, SEO specialists and eCommerce capitalists looking to cue into the same markets should take a strategic long look at the ways these candidates are implementing web analytics and social marketing to gather up the support it will take to bring their parties nominations and a hopeful new address at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue.

Posted by arman
Posted in Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Online Advertising, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, Website Analytics, World, eCommerce | 1 Comment »
Tags: 2008, Barak Obama, digg, eCommerce, facebook, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Interactive PR, John Edwards, John McCain, justin, media advertising, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, myspace, new internet marketing, online strategy, President, Presidential, race, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, social media, twitter, web 2.0, web analytics, white house, YouTube