Quick blog tip

Unless the visitors to your blog are very loyal, you may want to consider summarizing your blog posts on your blog homepage if you aren’t already doing so. Jakob Nielsen conducted a blog engagement/eye-tracking study on a variety of corporate blogs. The basic finding was that summarizing your blog posts gives the website visitor a better chance of finding something they’re going to spend time reading. On blogs that include the full posts on the blog homepage, readers tend to abandon the blog after viewing the first post.

Am I going to change the way bradparsons.com operates? Probably not, at least not in the near future. I have decent visitor loyalty so why jeopardize readership? If you’re unsure of what’s best for your blog, you could test two versions and see what version keeps visitors on the site longer. Longer stays + more pages viewed is probably the version you want to run with.

Writers Wanted

In January of 2010 I launched HST in Canada (www.hstincanada.com) with the help of a friend and colleague Isaac Oslund. There are 2 main reasons why this website was launched. Firstly, unlike client projects, I can discuss the results of this project freely here on my blog – you could call it a “proving ground” project. It’s a tool I can use to demonstrate the opportunity that exists through writing online. Secondly, the discussion around harmonized sales tax was growing and the web was under-served on the topic; someone had to step up and fill the niche.

Identifying the niche was the first order of business. Before HSTinCanada.com there were three types of websites that were posting information about HST. Government party websites, news outlets and anti-HST websites. There didn’t seem to be a single website that talked about both Ontario and BC, nor was there a website that didn’t have an agenda. There were HST supporting websites and HST opposing websites – there was no neutral source of information where a worth while discussion could take place.

Thus, HSTinCanada.com was born and 6 months later the website is closing in on 100,000 page views per month. In those 6 months over 70 strategic articles have been written and hundreds of comments have been posted. With advertising revenue the website is generating some welcomed extra income and it will be a valuable web entity for quite some time to come.

You may be asking why I’m posting this here – the reason is simple. Blogging exploded onto the scene – anyone and everyone setup a website about their lives, their hobbies, etc. The problem with this approach was the content wasn’t usually written strategically, or the blog structure itself didn’t help the website rank in search engines. This doesn’t mean the writer wasn’t talented, it simply means the writer wasn’t focused on optimizing the website for search engines. Furthermore, we’ve seen local newspapers, magazines and other printed periodicals closing their doors or struggling to remain in business. Now we see select blogs maintained by one individual raking in 6 figures per year, sometimes 7 figures. The landscape has changed for written content, and now is the time to take advantage of the situation.

I’m dedicating some time to replicating the HSTinCanada.com process with a variety of topics by working with passionate, skilled writers. Instead of writing the content, I will simply be working with writers to guide the content and start the website on the right foot. I will create and host the website and show the writer how to post articles to the site – all the technical stuff will be taken care of. As these projects launch I will be writing about them here – I already have a couple lined up and am excited to get underway. If you or someone you know has always had a knack for writing or is overly knowledgeable about a particular topic, I’m open to discussing a partnership with the writer – just contact me!

The Changing Value of Ad Impressions

The web is being consumed in an ever increasing variety of ways. Mobile phones, wifi-connected televisions and Internet connected gaming consoles like the Sony PS3 are all changing the landscape in subtle ways. Aside from the iPhone/iPad not supporting Flash animated ads, the way these devices are used is distinctly different from the way we use our desktop PCs.

For example, you have an iPad in your hands and you’re reading a Castanet article. The text is slightly too small to read by default, so you’ve zoomed in, which coincidentally moves the advertising off screen. Is an iPad ad impression worth the same as a regular desktop ad impression? Or maybe you’re sitting with a half-dozen friends in your living room watching YouTube videos through your Playstation 3 web browser. Any ads displayed have technically received 6 ad impressions, so is an ad impression delivered to a Playstation 3 or wifi-connected television worth more than the typical desktop ad impression? Newspapers and magazines often presume the average issue is read by multiple people – it’s probably time for online advertising to start considering the same approach.

Publishing companies will need to consider this when attaching values to their display advertising options. Ad networks have already started allowing advertisers to target specific types of devices – Google Adsense allows it’s users to enable or disable delivering ads to mobile devices. Advertising firms will also have to consider the format they are building ads in – Flash is the most popular format to use, but iPhones and iPads won’t display Flash ads, so it’s becoming more important with every passing day to supply both Flash and static creatives. For publishing companies selling online ads, they will need to detect what type of device the visitor is using and swap Flash ads out with static ads if the device doesn’t support Flash. That’s where the opportunity lies, at least temporarily.

When publishing companies first start delivering ads specifically to mobile devices like the iPhone, that creates the perfect opportunity for the appropriate advertiser to swoop in and buy some exposure at an introductory price. If you have an iPhone app to promote or an iPhone friendly website, you might be surprised at how well these ads can perform for the price. iPhone/iPad targeted advertising won’t be the bread and butter of most online publishers, so the fact that it’s an afterthought should keep prices low. This same concept applies to game console targeted advertising if that type of audience/platform suits your brand.

The death of a marketing cliche

Here it comes:

Half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half!

I’ve heard it used as a joke and I’ve heard it used in a completely serious manner – I’m just happy I focus primarily on Internet marketing. Here’s why this phrase is dead to me:

• With $1,000 you employ me to launch a Facebook campaign for your brand which directs visitors to your website where you sell [insert product here]. For the sake of this article, I’ll use handmade chocolate gift packages which are sold through your website.
• Targeting just a single city, I segment your audience into groups. Males of three specific age ranges and females of three specific age ranges.
• 10 different ads are created for each segment – a total of 60 ads are launched for the campaign (60 may seem like a lot – more on that later)
• After the campaign is live, I review the statistics and learn:
  • Males age 24-30 don’t respond to ads with heart related pictures
  • Females 30-35 respond strongly to “catch your man off guard this valentines”
  • Males & females both seem to like the “surprise that special someone this Valentine’s” message

So at this point we have a leg up on print and other traditional means of advertising. We were able to run 60 ads simultaneously targeting specific demographics, but it doesn’t stop there – now the visitor is on your website:

• You have 4 packages ready for sale, each at different price points:
  • A variety of chocolates plus a teddy bear
  • Heart shaped chocolates with chocolate body paint (my favorite)
  • Dark chocolate package (the healthy choice)
  • The highest of high end product for those chocolate aficionados out there
• With proper tracking, you can learn which of the above groups are most likely to purchase the teddy bear package versus the heart shaped package.

So in the end we’ve learned that 25-30 year old males have a tendency to opt for the teddy bear package, while the females aged 35-40 spring for the dark chocolate package. These are purely speculative results, I don’t have any clients in the chocolate business.

So we’ve proven this cliche wrong and more. At the Facebook Ad level we’ve learned which advertisements grab our audiences attention – yes we had to create 60 ads instead of one or two print ads but it was well worth it. Then we’ve also followed the visitor from Facebook along with his or her information straight through the purchase phase. We’ve learned what messages work, what imagery works, and what demographics are interested in which products. This is part advertising, part market research – pass this information on to your sales representatives to help them suggest the right products on the floor. There’s a legitimate reason to double the advertising budget you had in mind!

I have one critically important addition to this fabricated campaign – let them sign up for your email newsletter after they’ve made the purchase! Let them tell you special dates so you can send email reminders in time for their anniversary. They’ve taken the time to make a purchase, now grab a quick chunk of information from them so you can generate future sales.

Online media planning in a small market

The tools available to the online marketer are plentiful, and with a broad topic or a fairly general target market, the possibilities are literally endless. There’s online video, social media, good old display advertising, mobile marketing with ads or text messages, email marketing, website optimization, rss advertising, search engine marketing, podcasts, blogging…well, my goal here isn’t to list them all. The point is that when marketing to a broad group an online marketing consultant or firm has endless options and can spend an eternity optimizing and improving over time. But what does a business do when trying to reach a smaller community? A number of smaller communities, let’s say communities with a population of less than 250,000 people, are in an awkward spot. Newspapers and local television are struggling or closing their doors, and for many businesses those mediums are where the bulk of the marketing budget is spent.

So with newspaper circulation dwindling and the future of local television undetermined in many smaller communities, now is an important time for businesses to start considering online marketing. In the past one could argue that a business can remain competitive using traditional marketing tactics – chances are that if you’ve spent a number of years marketing with newspapers, you’ve learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. But as marketing budgets adapt to take advantage of new online marketing opportunities, these already struggling traditional mediums are going to be pulling in smaller percentages of their advertiser’s budgets.

A common excuse used to avoid using online marketing is that the company website isn’t up to par, and the good news is web development costs aren’t as high as they used to be. The bottom line is online marketing is becoming less of an optional marketing tactic and more of an obligatory tactic – but after a business gets that first taste of the new opportunity, measurably and flexibility online marketing offers, I just know the investment will be worth it.

The best part is you don’t have to jump into the deep end. I can work with your business to create an online marketing strategy that fits your budget and makes sense for your brand. Just drop me a note with any questions or thoughts and we’ll go from there!