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My list of reasons why I won’t be bringing home any schwag from Search Engine Strategies.
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Every year Reno puts on a rodeo event. I know this, not because I live here, but because every year approximately one person asks me, “are you going to the rodeo?”
Now granted I’m not a rodeo fan, but how is it that I don’t ever know about this event, save for the lone person asking me if I’m going? Is anybody even advertising this thing?
Ok, so I may not be the average consumer. I don’t watch commercials (thank you, TiVO!); I listen to commercial-free satellite radio or my ipod exclusively (thank you, XM and apple); I get all my news from the internet (thank you, Al Gore), rarely hitting local news sites; and I don’t get out much (thank you, blu-ray.) So it got me thinking….
Friday I posted a snapshot of a billboard advertising an auto mall here in Reno (Fallon, actually). I wanted to solicit some comments to see if anybody else saw the same problem with this billboard as I did.
Pretty much every comment noted that the guy with the cigarette was a problem, but only Chris of Westward Strategy explained why.
…they associated the sleazy car dealer with Fallon Auto Mall and not Kietzke or “Big City Motors” as their TV ads say. If I wasn’t a local and hadn’t seen their TV spots I would think that all the guys at Fallon Auto Mall look like him.
I just noticed this morning that Google AdSense ads just added scrolling arrows. The top ad below was the ad displayed on this blog. Click the down arrow in the bottom left corner of the ad and each of the following ads appeared in succession.
Five was the limit here, not sure what others are seeing.
You can read Google’s announcement here.
I’m not sure what to think of this. Will this increase the likelihood of ads getting clicked? Will this increase interaction with my site? Or does this distract even more from the content. What do you think?
There is a new book out by Seth Godin that gets to the why of New Marketing and explains the 14 trends that go with it. He encourages you to wisely dive in and embrace it. What are you waiting for?
Seth Godin who has written 11 books to date including Purple Cow as well as being an entrepreneur and highly respected speaker has another great book for us to read, Meatball Sundae. I truly enjoyed yet again his getting to the point writing merged with real-life business examples. Godin doesn’t focus on the negative instead he illustrates through words what a company did and what they could have done better and on the flip side what they did and what he thought was amazing about it. He also includes many websites that should be looked over as examples or used in your new marketing strategy. Godin gets into old marketing and new marketing how they differ and why old marketing is not the future or the present. He touches on, The Long Tail theory coined by Chris Anderson which is also one of SEOmoz’s must read books. Godin explains why direct communication with your customers is more important then ever and how one person can effect your business by using direct communication. It’s up to you to make it a positive comment or a negative one.
I don’t have a problem with political ads. In fact, I think the whole campaign finance reform issue is ill conceived and does the opposite of what we really want. People, including political candidates, have a right to run ads ad nauseum. The more information we have, the better.
I’m not afraid of occasional political references. In fact I’ve been known to make my political and even religious views known here on this blog, but I never go so far as to preach those views to my audience. I think it’s silly and bad for business. If you’re looking for controversy, I don’t think that’s the smartest way to drum it up.
Want to waste the next couple hours?
If you’re interested in Viral Marketing and understanding how it works, you may want to head over to the Ultimate Meme Database [link no longer available] (before they called it viral marketing they were called “memes”). What does or doesn’t go viral is a subject that can leave your mind pretty boggled- especially for someone trying to spread the word about a product or service, rather than just fishing for attention on the internet.
What do you do when you have to incorporate too many keywords in too little copy or you have a group of keywords that don’t easily fit into the existing web page? Besides the obvious solution of creating more copy to accommodate these situations, use your right brain to help you out here.
What do you do when you have key phrases that are personal in nature i.e. “make my writing better” as a core term? You could use it as a headline to spark your readers curiosity, but at times that may be an awkward act to follow. The most simple way to do this is to use customer quotes or testimonials.
I’m pretty immune to advertising. I fast forward through TV commercials, and rarely watch anything on YouTube, unless it’s referred to me as a great marketing piece. When I found cleanishappy.com (hat tip to my buddy John), I could not pull my eyes away from the screen. And it wasn’t just the butt shots (all tasteful, mind you) that interested me, but that certainly was an attention getter. These guys put together a fantastic presentation that not only was able to grab attention, but maintain the interest. I clicked on on every link and watched them all the way through. Now, where do I get one of these?
What do you think? Did you find this as compelling as I did?
Last year I put my business information on the sides of my truck. From the picture below you can see that I kept it very minimalist. I used just enough information to make the point. It shows our business name, web address and a tag line just to point out we do website marketing. It’s readable going 79 65 MPH on the freeway and nothing there distracts the reader. In my opinion, it was perfect.
Recently I inherited a ‘66 Dodge charger. I spent some money rebuilding the engine and getting it cleaned up both inside and out. And now it, too, was ready to become a driving advertisement. This time I wanted something a bit more “obvious”.
(Don't wait for the movie!)
E-Marketing Performance: Effective Strategies for Building, Optimizing & Marketing Your Website Online
