“Totally like Kleenex.”






If you’re a human being, then you have more than likely heard about the social networking giants Facebook and MySpace – unless, of course, you have been living in the jungles eating bugs for food without access to the Internet for the past 5 or 6 years. These sites connect people with long-lost friends, relatives and random, interesting (read: creepy) people. Marketers and branders alike have taken complete advantage of these social networks and have begun building brands and promoting their product or business through blog posts, profiles and events on these websites.

Thus, social media has become the future of branding. Yeah, I said it. Future. In the competitive field of branding and online marketing, you must always be one step ahead of the competition, looking for the new way to reach customers and build your brand. Social media has become that new tool that will help you build your brand and promote your company. But there are some problems with social networking…Einstein wasn’t kidding when he said that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some positives and negatives about social media and using it to market your business.

No Cost?

POSITIVE- No cost.
Yeah, it’s free. You make a profile, and in a few minutes you can begin the process of adding friends. Watch your ROI skyrocket because you’re not spending a thing! NOTHING! Amazing.

NEGATIVE – Cost(?)
Time is money, pal. With the mass of social networking sites on the Internet, (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.), being on all of them and regularly posting updates can be quite time consuming, taking away valuable time from other focuses of marketing your business.

Reach your Audience

POSITIVE – Quickly reach your audience.
Do you have a new product, or want to inform your customers of an event sponsored by your company? Heck, maybe you just want to write a blog post about a new product or the company in general. Go ahead and do it.

If you followed the path of more traditional online marketing, you would have to have people sign up for a newsletter (which would necessitate them visiting your website first) that would be sent to their email (which, more than likely, was a fake email or one they never use [We've all done it.]).

With social media networks like Facebook, all you need to do now is send out a little message about your new product, or write up a new blog, and then it’s automatically seen by all of your online friends (whom you’ve never met face to face [and you probably don't want to...they're creepy.]) and it’s seen as soon as they log on.

“Trust us, they can be weird.”





It’s a simple and effective way to inform your customers and build your brand from “The Little Company That Could” to “I Don’t Know Where To Put All This Money. Seriously.”

NEGATIVE – Who the heck is your audience?
You need to know your audience before you can reach them. Are you opting primarily for young adults? Try Facebook. Are you a musical instrument company trying to sell some instruments? MySpace and their 9 gazillion bands are the way to go. Adults above 35? Gather.com. There are niche markets out there – you just have to know how to tap into them.

NEGATIVE PART 2 – Quickly reach your audience (?)
There’s reaching your audience….then there’s “reaching” your audience.

The thing about social networking users – they really hate to be bothered. Take Facebook, for example. In 2006, they revealed the “News Feed”, a tool that allowed a user to see what all the friends in their network were doing constantly, being bombarded with Wall Posts, Notes and who became friends with so-and-so. They hated it.

There’s a fine line between informing your audience and bugging the heck out of them. With some networking sites, you can get banned for constantly spamming them. To be successful, you need to find that balance between being annoying and doing business.

Get Fans

POSITIVE – Customers come to you…
It’s a proven fact that people spend more time on Facebook looking at their online friends than spending time with their real life friends. Don’t worry where I got that statistic, it’s totally true (because you read it on the Internet). Fine…people spend about an average of 19 minutes on Facebook.

Facebook has created specialized “Fan pages” for companies, products, and people. These Fan Pages show up in the profiles of those who have become fans of yours, and (if all goes as planned) will eventually be seen by their friends, who may join, and will be seen by those friends, and the cycle continues forever until you are friends with everyone ever. With profiles on Facebook and MySpace, people will eventually come to you…

“Wait, there are fans on Facebook?”





NEGATIVE – …Only after you add them as Friends.
There’s always a catch-22. You must find that target audience, and then add them as your friends, invite them to be your fans on your fan pages, etc. As with any marketing or branding strategy, you must get your name out there first before people come to you.

Add Friends (but not too many because they can ban you for that, too), and build a relationship with those customers. Begin to branch out and add more and more friends.

Then word-of-mouth will spread and people will begin looking for you. The beginning of branding on social networks can be compared to grassroots marketing campaigns – you must be the one to tell them about yourself. Once established as a strong brand, word-of-mouth will bring in potential customers.

Brand Your Image

POSITIVE – Raise brand awareness and image.
This is a BIG positive. With profiles on major social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, numerous blogs, comments and articles, the amount of exposure you will get will increase your brand image and awareness in a big way. Your brand name will get out to the public and to those who use social media, and with positive reviews of products and services from the consumers who will use them, people will begin to know your brand name and the quality it provides.

For more established brands, using these social media networks will help keep the brand fresh in people’s minds, breathing new life into some brands that may have fallen by the way side.

Tracking Made Easy

POSITIVE – Easily track progress.
If you do anything on the Internet, there’s a way to track it (scary huh?). From Google Analytics to tickers on websites, you are able to see how many people have viewed your page. The same applies for social media marketing.

You are able to easily track the progress of your blogs and profiles on these networks to see how many people have:

• Viewed your page
• Offered positive reviews
• Commented and so on

This, in turn, is automatic feedback to how your product or service is doing straight from the customers mouth.

It may take a few years before social networking and social media sites can be fully realized as a way to brand and market your company. But by outlining the various positives and negatives associated with them, you can develop a plan to begin building your brand through these websites.

Chris Levkulich Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

How do we make the “life-gives-you-lemons” lemonade during this downturn? Easy—we brand ourselves.

Branding ourselves may seem tough, but with some clever social media tools we can get the edge over other job applicants and land ourselves a new job—and drink a sweet glass of brand-ade.

“How do we make the “life-gives-you-lemons” lemonade during this downturn?”

For more details:

• People as Brands: The Lady Gaga Effect
• How to brand ourselves

People as Brands: The Lady Gaga Effect

Britney Spears: remember when she was the next-door virgin? The cute half of Justin Timberlake? Or the crazy bald mom with the umbrella? Though Britney Spears is tabloid-worthy, she changes what she is trying to say more than a shady pick-up artist at a dive bar. Where Britney Spears lacks a cohesive brand image, Lady Gaga consistently markets herself as a brand and little more.

Lady Gaga can teach us much more than how to dance with crutches—she has done an exceptional job at branding herself into an over-the-top music performer. Anything that she throws at you, from lamp-shades to shoulder pads, you tend to accept and secretly love. (Come on, who hasn’t danced in their bedroom to Poker Face?)

In essence, Lady Gaga has boiled herself down to sequins, glitter and disco sticks. Her brand image is to be “famous”—big, bold and always tabloid-worthy. This branded image works for her, because no matter what she does, she reinforces the image she is portraying.

What can we take away from this?

• First, if we ever want to be famous and rich, we should sell our souls to the tabloids.
• Second, and more relevantly, the ability to brand ourselves is both possible and plausible.

It just requires us to be consistent in our media portrayals. For some, like Gaga and Brit, that media is tabloids. For those of us who will never be on Perez or Page 6, we can help control the Google results and our social media.

“We can help control the Google results and our social media.”

How to brand ourselves

Branding ourselves may seem tough, but with some clever tools—it’s relatively simple.

Virtual World

One method of branding ourselves is the social media resume. This method connects our preferred social medias (e.g. Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) to reach our desired contacts (e.g. recruiters, employers, etc.).

If you aren’t technologically inclined enough to build your own website, then you should use a quicker tool called a Google profile. (Check out my Google profile here.) A Google profile appears on the first page when your name is searched and allows you to choose the content that is shown.

Real World

Unfortunately, our lives have to move past Google results, and you have to interact with people in real life. Fellow brander, Mark Sheffield shared some valuable PR Strategies individuals can use, especially job applicants.

“Our branded image lets employers know that we understand technology and have good manners.”

The Best of Both Worlds

Adopting some of these strategies and combining them into our branded online persona can help give us an edge over the competition. Why?

Our branded image lets employers know that we:

1. Understand technology
2. Have good manners

With your silver lining in place, go out and make that money. Or if worst comes to worst, you can just dance. It’s gonna be okay. (da-dit-doo-doo)

James Harrell James Harrell doesn’t even like Lady Gaga. He just respects strong brand image. Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. kicked off its new mobile site using a Quick Response (QR) code (or Tag) on the world’s largest HDTV video board at the new Cowboys Stadium during the third quarter of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Cowboys Classic (University of Oklahoma vs. Brigham Young University) on Saturday, September 5, 2009. The first-ever QR code marketing campaign to take place on a stadium jumbotron directed fans with QR code-enabled smartphones to the company’s new mobile site at http://dsports.mobi for an exclusive offer of $10 off a purchase of $50 or more.

“Dick’s Sporting Goods has gone mobile in one of the biggest ways possible with a technology convergence of largest meets first,” said Jeffrey R. Hennion, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Dick’s Sporting Goods.

“[We've] gone mobile in one of the biggest ways possible!”

An announcer instructed fans to take pictures of the QR code shown on the jumbotrons, which total to 25,000 square feet of video billboards. Fans with QR code readers, upon doing so, were connected to the site where they received the exclusive offer. Fans without a reader were still eligible to redeem the discount by entering “dsports.mobi” in their mobile phone’s browser or by taking a photo of the jumbotron and emailing it to Deals@DSports.mobi.

“Fans were instructed to take photos of the QR code shown on the jumbotrons.”

Branding Brand, a Pittsburgh-based interactive marketing company, designed and created Dick’s user-friendly mobile site, which enables mobile users to browse and purchase from the complete Dick’s selection. The site was tailored to mobile devices for faster download time and improved viewability. Web pages appear differently on mobile devices than on computer browsers, because most mobile browsers do not support standard HTML/CSS/JS. The Dick’s mobile site was revealed as part of Dick’s Sporting Goods Kickoff Week on ESPN, the official start of the 2009 college football season.

QR code, released in 1994, was developed to be easily interpreted by scanner equipment by Denso Wave in Japan. The “matrix” or two-dimensional bar code allows QR code-enabled smartphones to read the QR code, which then triggers an action, such as linking to a mobile site, on the mobile device.

“Smartphones read the QR code, which triggers an action, such as linking to a mobile site.”

Typical bar codes contain data in one direction only, whereas QR codes have higher information density as they contain information in both vertical and horizontal directions. This matrix method, which can be read from any direction, allows more information and character types to be stored in a smaller space than a typical bar code.

QR code readers can be installed in the U.S. on newer smartphones, such as many BlackBerry models and the newest Apple iPhone. QR code technology allows for many creative interactive uses and has even been used in a real-world game during which participants “killed” opponents by reading QR codes on their backs.

Kara Arnold Kara Arnold has a framed QR code on her living room wall. Who needs a Picasso? Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

The products are concurrent with the era of the show (the early ’60s). This combination of atmospheric prop and product placement seems to work to the advantage of set designer, consumer and brand… at least most of the time.

According to New York Magazine’s recent article titled ‘The Hidden Genius of Mad Men Product Placement’, everything is kosher until the products are inhibited by their dated style. Otherwise, the system works.

Classic products like Coca-Cola, Heineken and Utz potato chips get classier with every episode, especially if someone as smooth as Don Draper, the main character on the show, is partaking. It’s partly nostalgia that grabs us, the urge to gulp that beer and crunch those chips and reinvent the good old days.

Does some of the product placement on the show date the product? Certainly. But is that a bad thing?

“Does some of the product placement on the show date the product?”

People fall in love with their products, even if they do become dated.

How many times has my mother searched for “White Shoulders” at Neimans when it can be bought at your nearest Walgreens? Why am I always sad to find another independent storefront shut down when I return to my hometown during the holidays? Granted, I’d never stock up on conical Maidenform bras or cake on the Coty face powder, but give me a gimlet made with Smirnoff that I can drink while lounging on my vintage olive-coloured fabric couch while wearing a beaded cardi anyday.

“Dated” can be retro, and retro, it seems, has always been in style. On the other hand, if the brand is strong, it’s a win-win.

The fear lies in the idea that placing a product on a show like Mad Men automatically dates the product. Most cases are all for the technique, pleading “retro phenomenon” and “classic cool.” It’s when the products don’t or can’t translate to the times we live in that this type of product placement becomes detrimental.

And yet, if a product is that dated, it’s not losing much revenue anyway. There’s a reason why cases of White Shoulders stack up behind plastic sliding doors in drugstores rather than grace the glass counter tops of chic department stores.

“Television is one of the largest mediums from which to advertise…”

The benefits of product placement on television outweigh the costs. Television is by far one of the largest and most widespread mediums from which to advertise, and when the context is as aesthetically appealing and entertaining as this series is, it’s an unarguable format for efficient and effective advertising.

The image of Don Draper sipping soulfully but manfully on his Heineken slides down as smooth as vanilla ice cream with apple pie on the side. What product placement on Mad Men does for us as viewers and consumers is bring the products back to life and instill them with humanity and, well…. just plain old goodness.

There is no black leather—or at least there hasn’t been from what I’ve seen—on the show. There is, instead, chiffon, ermine, and taffeta. There is no loud, obnoxious music pulsating through our stereo sound speakers when we sit down for a show. Instead, there is cool jazz, Blossom Dearie, Peggy Lee. Jimmy Durante. There is drama, and a tiny sliver of seediness; but on the whole, everything is set up charmingly, from Joan’s bright, tight-fitting dresses to Betty Draper’s perfectly matched clutch and pair of heels.

The relevant products become more sought-after for their nostalgic qualities, made cool again by the cool cats of a powerful Madison Avenue ad agency in the ’60s. The ones that don’t—well—advertising is a cutthroat business. That, and some things just shouldn’t be repeated, like the beer shampoo that promised to make your hair shiny in the seventies.

The least Mad Men can do is stay true to its era and spark our memories so that instead of choosing a six pack of Diet Pepsi in the supermarket, we go for the Coke in the glass bottles. Just this once. To feel like we’re getting the real thing. That’s what it’s about, right?

Seems like we get further and further away from what is essential with every fusion of watermelon and vanilla mixed with a splash of hot sauce and a confit of glazed duck fat and raspberry ‘air’ garnish. Where have all the basics gone? How’s about a good old-fashioned cheeseburger with a pickle on the side and a chocolate malted?

Let’s wear some worn-in 501’s today, shall we? Let’s stick to red lipstick, not mocha frost or sierra dune. Let’s keep it simple.

‘Cause when it comes right down to it, the brand that can withstand is the one that we all eventually end up returning to. Classic is always in.

“Let’s stick to red lipstick.”

By Kate Gross

“The internet is littered with the same logos that inhabit billboards and magazines.”

The Big Picture

We can already calculate the number of consumers clicking on online advertisement to gauge their success rate, while also acknowledging the uproar created by bloggers, but what marketers and ad agencies have to understand is the broader picture: What makes Web-Ad campaigns succeed?

Since companies and firms are so focused on conventional marketing methods to the individual consumer, through print and commercial ads, they tend to lose sight of the power of digital marketing. Making use of online advertisements not only reach a wider population, but still keep the focus on the individual consumers. An eMarketer Article entitled, Online Advertising Pushes Through, advocates the rise of Web-ad campaigns and anticipates online spending to increase over the next 4 years.

Generating the Buzz

According to Forrester Research, as of now, the average marketer spends only 9.9% of its budget on online advertising and because “digital [marketing] is young,” says Emily Riley, an analyst at Forrester, firms and organizations are reluctant to dump any more of their spending into it.

Since the recent WPP-Google merger, outlined in the Wall Street Journal Article, WPP, Google to Fund Wed-Ad Research, research has began to explore the success of online advertising. WPP, world leader in marketing communications, and Google, number one online resource tool, have teamed up to revolutionize the way traditional ads work with digital media to ultimately influence consumer behaviors. Their three-year program backed by a $4.6 million investment will begin their first round of research at such accredited institutions like Harvard Business school, MIT and Standford University.

The data will be retrieved from some of WPP and Google’s top clients, such as major advertisers like Unilever and Ford, which will offer up-to-date information and numbers on pressing issues concerning the online market.

Such pressing issues include:

1. Determining the best way to allocate funds between traditional ads and online ads.
2. How online ads affect a company’s sales and brand image.
3. How the physical display and graphics of Web-ads affect consumer behavior.
4. Psychological and neurological analysis of how the brain determines whether web advertisements are relevant.

Not only will their merger begin research on digital marketing strategies and campaigns, but it will persuade companies and their marketers to spend more than just a small fraction of their budgets for online advertising campaigns.

A Professional Approach

Glen Urban, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management proposed research in the cognitive area of study by sampling online surfers and determining how their habits influence their thinking styles. By researching whether someone is more drawn toward a verbal message than a visual message, marketers can tailor their ads according to the prospective market.

“A phone company promoting a new long-distance calling plan, for example, might show a holistic thinker an ad with a slogan like ‘Reach Out to the World,’ with an image of two people reaching toward each other across the globe. An analytical thinker might get the same slogan but with bullet points highlighting the plan’s features.”

On the other hand, Martin Reiman, a psychologist, from the University of South California, has a different perspective on research. He plans to examine the role of emotions in the decision-making process and how advertisements influence those decisions. By studying the areas where blood flows, physiologists can determine when a consumer is stressed out, excited, overwhelmed or affected at all by any given ad.

Robin Miller Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

But they’re there because they work. Let’s take a look at how effective these ads can be when we give the people what they want.

Judging Clickability

After we see an ad, what compels us to click? A study by LightSpeed Research (pdf) outlined in the article, Online Ad Preferences Vary by Age: Discounts Appeal to Everyone, compares online advertisement preferences between various age groups. Of course everyone wants an ad that is relevant and useful because if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t click on it.

Consumers want advertisers to understand their needs and ultimately provide a solution. The difference in preference arises when an ad is either entertaining or gives you money off. The younger generation (18-24) will pay more attention to an ad if it is entertaining, while older Internet users (45-54) could almost care less, seeing how there is a significant 12% difference in preference.

Discounts are also important when judging how successful an advertisement is. The studies show that all generations are looking for advertisements to offer discounts, but 18-34-year-olds rank the highest in preference at about 40%, while 35-year-olds plus are about 10% less likely to pay attention to an ad if it gives discounts.

The difference is not huge, but during these difficult economic times, it may not be that older people don’t want to save money, but that they are less likely to even consider luxury purchases when bills, mortgages and car notes are factors concerning their disposable income. On the other hand, those younger than 35 don’t have as many obligations and are in a very mobile stage; either still living at home or in college, or they may just be starting their careers so they are more willing to view an ad with a discount and be attracted to purchasing.

New Generation of Online Advertisements

Traditional types of media such as sponsored links, banners ads and emails are not completely out of the marketing mix because people are attracted to relevant search results to give them exactly what they are looking for. Search results also generate click-throughs by sparking some interest causing people to scan and browse an advertiser’s web page. But nowadays a simple “Click Here” is not enough.

Web surfers want to see blinking and scrolling, video seeding, audio and interactive games! All this in efforts to keep the consumer interested and entertained.

“This information is not specific to any age group; it is an average of all respondents from Figure 1.”

New forms of online advertising, like the use of sound, video, and *free Facebook gifts, are finding their place primarily in the young adult population (18-24-year-olds) while emails tend be more effective in those over the age of 25. Think about it, this data makes sense. The 18 to 24-year-old age bracket generally attend a university or college and have access to a computer, whether they are at home or on campus, and take advantage of social media networks, which give them the opportunity to be exposed to the posted advertisements. For example, Facebook started as a college social network to connect with other students attending their prospective institutions. Now, anyone can belong to Facebook, as long as they are categorized into a network; therefore, Facebook can create and market their ads to those who do not go to college or universities, but are still between the ages of 18 and 24.

On the other hand, emails generally reach an audience over the age of 25 because this population bracket is generally looking for future career paths, taking advantage of opportunities, reaching personal goals, acquiring banking accounts, accumulating expenses, paying bills, and so on, which exposes them to email advertisements and even spam. 34% of those between the ages of 25 and 34 say they have seen and sometimes clicked on an ad from an email.

*Branding Facebook gifts??

Advertisers aren’t only buying Ad space on Facebook, but branding free Facebook gifts. When you log into Facebook, the news feed updates you on upcoming events and birthdays, and then Facebook recommends giving him or her a free promotional gift, which are offered in limited supply. These gifts are are usually little cartoon trinkets like stuffed animals, a birthday cake, or bouquet balloons, but now it may be a box of Skittles Gum linked to a sponsored fan page or even a High School Musical DVD linked to its corresponding website.

Marketers are now educating themselves on this new wave of technology to find smarter and more innovative ways to penetrate the market!

Robin Miller Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

“Unfortunately, we’re not talking about this duo.”




What’s more important than your PageRank? Okay, not a lot. But the ability to trust your Web site is definitely up there. In fact, the SEO Book recently said trust is the new competitive advantage in Web sites. Imagine you’re writing a research paper about George Washington Carver and how he invented peanut butter. Which source would you prefer – Jif.com or an old Geocities site called “george washington carverz world!!!”? Some of us are a little nostalgic and may want to choose the latter, but we all know a professor would only accept a professional source – one which people know they can trust.

So how do sites become trustworthy? Read on for the Branding Blog’s Top 5 Trust Techniques

1. Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Be transparent.

People will only begin to really trust you if they have a sense of who you are. This doesn’t mean giving out your full name, address, BMI or any other information you’re uncomfortable with sharing. But a brief introduction, perhaps with a photo, will show visitors that you’re a real person.

“Show visitors that you’re a real person.”




Even a paragraph explaining what your site is about, maybe with a brief mission statement, will show readers that you really care about what you’re talking about.

For example, if you manage a blog about Akron Ohio’s emerging art scene, explain that you have lived in Akron for 25 years and your art has been featured in a number of local galleries. This type of information can be elaborated upon with testimonials, which is discuss later in this article.

2. My, What A Lovely Font You Have: Look and sound professional.

The Look
Anyone can take a template and make a blog or Web site. But it takes real know-how to make a site look great.

Personalized banners and layouts are what will get your site noticed and trusted. A sleek, modern site shows visitors that you’re hip to the kids’ jive – that is to say, you know what you’re doing.

Meanwhile, a blog in Comic Sans and side-scrolling banners might repel readers away. Take a quick lesson in graphic design by looking at other popular Web sites – Helvetica, lowercase titles, dark and neutral color schemes; seeing a pattern yet? Don’t directly imitate other designs, but use them as inspiration for your own. Take some pointers from this Web site – it lists some of the worst-looking sites around.

The Language
Looking professional is one thing, but sounding professional is another can of worms. Gone are the days of simply hitting “Spellcheck” to ensure your spelling accuracy; there’s grammar, structure, and vocabulary to worry about.

The best course of action is to have coworkers or friends proofread your writing over and over.

3. Don’t Take My Word For It: Use testimonials.

Testimonials are like having an army of press secretaries for free.

• Encourage users to leave feedback and use their reviews to your advantage by posting them on your site.
• Be sure to include names, occupations, ages; any details to prove that these comments are coming from real people.
• Consider devoting an entire section on your page to testimonials or reviews.

“Testimonials are like having an army of press secretaries for free.”




If your site has been featured in a popular blog, magazine, newspaper or television, don’t be afraid to list every single one. They can only increase your credibility and show visitors that you know what you’re talking about.

Never ever make false testimonials or get your friends to write testimonials for you. It may seem like no one would ever know, but if it somehow got out visitors may never trust you again. Not to mention the gods of branding have a way of knowing when you’re lying and making you pay for it later.

4. Keeping It Real: Don’t delete comments.

You wake up one morning to find that one of your most recent posts has been blasted by a famous blogger. She says your articles are “uninformed, biased, and downright horrible,” and she encourages the rest of your readers to boycott your blog.

You may find that you’ve unconsciously directed your cursor over the “delete” button, which is a natural reaction – but hold it right there! This fiendish foe may have just spiked your readership by simply mentioning your blog in her post.

Famous celebrity battles have always made headlines, like last year’s Donald Trump v. Rosie O’Donnell debacle. Each party faced a lot of criticism from the opposition, but the battle boosted popularity for both of them.

Deleting negative comments will always have readers thinking you have something to hide. Keep the comment and politely defend yourself. If your site is really trustworthy you should have nothing to hide.

5. Check The Expiration Date: Update often.

Nothing sours the stomach more than finding a site that hasn’t been updated since 2001. But even blogs that haven’t seen an update in a few weeks will quickly be dropped from bookmarks if not rehabilitated promptly. Remember, the decision to make a Web site is an important one, and it’s a pretty big responsibility.

“Keep things fresh!”



Even if your site is centered around something simple like a small town bakery, it is extremely important to find something to keep it current by:

• Giving a first-time visitor a reason to return to your site.
• Removing items that aren’t pertinent anymore to minimize confusion. If you have an event calendar from 2006, it’s time to get let it go.

In the case of the small town bakery, posting a daily menu of specialty items or a list of each week’s best-sellers are great ways to keep things as fresh as their goods.

Pam Hanlin Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

Web advertising is becoming increasingly popular as the Internet becomes more and more critical in our everyday lives. And why not? There are several benefits that advertising on the Web offers that other advertising mediums lack, including:

• Being able to target a specific niche
• Immediate statistical return for how the ad is doing
• Building brand awareness and customer relationships

“Targeting specific niches makes bank!”



This article covers:

• Main goals of Web advertisement
• Types of Web advertisements
• How Web ad success is measured
• The Impact of ad size and position
• Other Ways to make a Web ad more effective

Main Goals of Web Advertisements

You may think that Web advertisers’ main goal in creating these ads is an evil scheme to trap you into a world chalk full of diet pills, pornography and celebrity IQs, taking you to sites which cause your computer to freeze at the worst possible moment with the worst possible pictures held up on the screen, scarring you for life, but that is not the truth.

“You may think their main goal is to trap you…”

The main goal of Web ads, as in most advertisements, is mere exposure and brand awareness. A study by Hot Wired found that Web banner exposure can increase consumer brand loyalty from 5 to more than 50 percent, whether or not the viewer even clicked on the ad.

The ability to click-through is just an added bonus to advertising on the Web.

Types of Web Advertisements

Web ads, or banners, come in several different formats. Included among these are:

• Rectangular banners (large horizontal banners)
• Popup banners (everybody’s favorite)
• Button banners (the smaller banners)
• Skyscraper banners (large vertical rectangular banners)

How Web Ad Success is Measured

As I mentioned above, a big benefit of Web advertising is its ability to instantaneously give statistical feedback, in order to evaluate how the ad is doing.

There are 3 main ways in which the effectiveness of Web advertisements is gauged:

• Impressions
• Click-through rates
• Conversion rates

Impressions
Impressions are simply views of the ad. This is how all forms of advertisements are measured. On the Web, it can be measured by how many times someone visits a particular site and actually sees the ad. For example, if there is an ad for a diet pill on AOL.com, and someone goes there three times, then they would have three impressions. Impressions are also the way in which most Web ads are priced.

Click-through rates
An ad’s click-through rate is just like it sounds. It is the percentage of those impressions that actually click on the ad. In the U.S., click-through rates are very low, averaging at about 1 percent and continuously declining.

Conversion rates
Conversion rates are the percentage of the people who saw the ad and performed a specific action. For example, if an ad were trying to get someone to sign up for a newsletter, it would be the percentage of the people who saw the ad and signed up for the newsletter.

Impact of Ad Size and Position

Using the statistics of impressions, click-through rates and conversion rates can show which ads perform better than others. Web advertisers have performed a lot of studies trying to gauge what sizes of Web banners and positions on the page are the most effective.

“Many studies have been performed to optimize ad effectiveness.”


Rectangular banners, popup banners and skyscraper banners have demonstrated higher conversion rates, according to a study by Advertising.com, Inc. Wider formats also perform better, but this is not a steadfast rule, due to a lot of success having to do with how the advertisement fits in with the site, according to Pheobe Ho of Google AdSense’s Optimization team.

Larger ads have higher click-through rates, but smaller ads have a higher conversion rate and perform better in driving purchases. This may be because those who click on the smaller ads are more motivated to get the product and fit the niche better.

Position of the ads is also important. According to a DoubleClick study, banners at the top of the page do twice as well as the average. Banners at the center, near site navigation or images, above the fold and at the end of articles also do better than others.

Other Ways to Make a Web Ad More Effective

So, by now, we’ve covered effectiveness of ad size, type and position.

Here are a few more rules for making your Web ad sparkle and fighting off “banner immunity”:

• Use keywords, such as FREE or CLICK HERE
• Make the ad interactive and/or animated
• Have an attention-getting element or a reason for the audience to click-through
• Ask questions
• Utilize bright colors
• Avoid trying to create a sense of urgency in the audience
• Stay simple to encourage the message while avoiding distraction from it

So, now the question is, “What the heck does ‘outside the box’ entail?” …besides being a kid’s TV show? Basically, thinking outside the box when it comes to marketing your brand or product can be anything that will be seen by a lot of people and get their attention more than a traditional commercial or print ad would.

“‘Thinking outside the box’ is more than just a TV show!”

Think Inside the Blimp

The most obvious example of thinking outside the box when it comes to building brand awareness is the Goodyear Blimp at sports games. That thing is everywhere. It has nothing to do with the sporting event, it’s just a friggin’ blimp in the sky, floating around above the game. And it works.

It’s the Goodyear Blimp. Not – the blimp. The Goodyear Blimp. That’s building brand awareness.

It’s reaches its audience because it:

• Is simple
• Is creative
• Uses non-traditional thinking to reach an audience

Not to mention, the amount of people at the stadium regularly looking for the blimp, and the amount of times the TV cameras at the game give a shot of the blimp to all the viewers at home. It reaches an audience more so than a traditional ad would.

“It’s more than just a blimp—it’s the GOODYEAR blimp.”

Ask “Will It Blend?”

Another way to think outside the box is by creating a viral video. Blendtec’s videos on YouTube are awesome. They show a blender blending stuff. They aren’t going the traditional route though – they’re not blending fruit and vegetables and other food items. They’re blending crap like sneakers, credit cards, nails, crowbars…anything they can get their hands on. And that works. Those YouTube videos are being viewed by millions of people. Once again, it’s outside the box. Granted, it may seem like a traditional ad, but then again you don’t see the Juice Man trying to juice a cell phone.

“Think outside the box by creating a wacky viral video.”

Place Products

Product placement is a perfect way to raise brand awareness. Seriously, if Batman would’ve used a Bowflex to get into shape to defeat The Joker in “The Dark Knight”, I’m fairly sure I would’ve bought a Bowflex – because I want to be Batman…but that’s a whole other article completely.

Either way, product placement can get your product noticed by millions of people across the nation in a sometimes not-too-subtle way. But it works. Back in the day, everyone wanted Rayban sunglasses because Will Smith wore them in “Men in Black”. You didn’t care about Reese’s Pieces till E.T. ate them. And what about the TV show “Knight Rider” being one giant product placement for the Pontiac Trans Am? Same goes for the movie “The Wizard” being entirely about Nintendo. (Ohhh! That sound right there is your mind being BLOWN.)

The key to building brand awareness is to think outside the box. Make your audience see something unexpected from your brand. That kind of recognition really stands out to consumers and will in turn raise your brand awareness.

Chris Levkulich Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

Let’s take a look at some ways:

• Brand Building
• Direct Communication
• Search Engine Optimization
• Low Cost
• Efficiency
• It’s Fun

Brand Building

Blogging can help build your brand, which in the competitive world of business, can be very important. A strong brand image will make your company stand out, and blogging can improve the image of your products or company.

Brand perception is how the world sees your business, and through blogging, your company can represent itself and show the world what it’s really about.

By blogging, you can create a personality for your business, and through this, create relationships.

Direct Communication

Through blogging, the writer can express ideas and feelings about the company that may not be shown anywhere else.

A blog also allows users to make comments about anything they choose. The blog comments are direct responses from people that marketers can use to fix existing problems and to try new features in the future.

The direct communication that blogs create can also be useful when doing promotions. A promotional giveaway is a good way to attract people to a certain blog and to gain insight along with new customers.

“Direct communication is achieved through blogging.”

Search Engine Optimization

When using internet marketing, the goal is to be the first on the list of search engine result pages.

Blogs can help with this, because when a blog is used, it moves up the list of the searched item. Also, the more frequently a blog is updated, the more traffic it will get, further resulting in a higher ranking on a results page.

Low Cost

Blogging may be one of the most helpful and least expensive marketing tools. Why?

Blogs can reach millions of people, and those people could be potential customers! Blogging is a way of getting the word “out there” by not even leaving your desk.

Blogs are usually free or very inexpensive, and with all the internet marketing occurring, this is just one more way to build your company’s credentials.

Efficiency

Blogs are an amazing tool, but the best part about them is that they are easy to use. There are hundreds of sites that can help you set up a blog if you are a first timer, and many of the details are self explanatory. In addition, if the blog is easy for you to use, the blog will be easy for the customers to use as well.

Any time you have time to type, you have time to blog. And updating frequently is important, because the more you post, the more often Google sends spiders crawling to your site.

“Don’t worry if you have arachnophobia—these spiders are good!”

It’s Fun

Blogging can create a new way to interact with customers and promote the company or products.

By developing new ways to market, the marketing team will be more dedicated and not tired of the same old routines. Instead, a new task can eliminate boredom and promote enthusiasm, as well as simply hold their attention better.

Just like the “efficiency” aspect of blogging, the “fun” of blogging can also be a benefit for the users of the blog. People like to have a voice, and by being able to give their opinions, the users will enjoy the blog and hopefully continue to visit it.

So, why blog? As discussed earlier, there are numerous benefits to using a blog. If your company uses a blog, not only are they keeping up with the times, they are also creating a strong image for themselves. Most importantly, they are creating and continuing relationships with customers, and as we all know, a successful business is just that, because they have a strong, loyal customer base.

Therefore, why not blog?

By Ashley Hazlett