Internet Marketing Blog

by Danny Sullivan
Search Engine Land
July 28, 2008

Dave’s Comments: I haven’t heard this much chatter about a (potential) Google competitor in many months! Maybe there’s something to it this time. This brief blog entry highlights search engine guru Danny Sullivan’s take on all this. Read on and see for yourself!

“Can any start-up search engine “be the next Google?” Many have wondered this, and today’s launch of Cuil (pronounced “cool’) may provide the best test case since Google itself overtook more established search engines. Cuil provides what appears to be a comprehensive index of the web, a unique display presentation and emerges at a time when people might be ready to embrace a quality “underdog” service. The big questions now are, how’s the relevancy hold up? And can word-of-mouth really still build significant share?”

Read the entire article by clicking on the following Link:

Cuil Launches — Can This Search Start-Up Really Best Google?

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

by Brian Clark
copyblogger.com

Dave’s Comments: A great blog entry regarding what makes a GREAT blog entry! Plus a link to the original “More Cowbell” SNL skit! Take 2 minutes to read the full blog entry and another 5 minutes to watch one of the funniest SNL skits ever produced (IMHO)!

“In April of 2000, Saturday Night Live aired one of the few truly classic sketches outside of the 1970s and 80s. The sketch is a spoof of a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode featuring Blue Öyster Cult and the recording of (Don’t Fear) The Reaper (watch it here).

The sketch stars host Christopher Walken as famed producer “THE Bruce Dickinson,” with Will Ferrell on cowbell along with a faux Blue Öyster Cult. The whole joke centers around the fact that (Don’t Fear) The Reaper has a cowbell percussion element that will never be more obvious than played by Ferrell.

Here’s the point.”

To read the entire post, click on the following link:

The Secret to Captivating Content? More Cowbell!

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

by Hubspot Internet Marketing Blog
July 10, 2008

Dave’s Comments: Google’s Matt Cutts “in the flesh” – great stuff – thanks to Hubspot for bringing this video to my attention, and thanks for the brief summary of the main points made by Matt. My 2 cents on the point about starting a blog: great idea, but from a SEO point of view, I think it will be more effective to your overall visibility on the Web if you have the blog reside “under” your Web site domain – that way, the content of your blog will also be seen as part of your web site content. Check with your Web site host company – most of the large hosts offer at least one type of free blogging software that can be installed “under” your existing domain – I recommend using WordPress if your Web hosting company offers it.

“Google’s Matt Cutts posted a great article on his blog recently with simple and practical tips for small businesses. The video is included below.

The following are some of the simple tips made in the video.  Great advice for small business marketers.  The points in the video are simple, but it’s interesting because it’s straight, unfiltered advice from Google.”

To read these tips, click on the following link to go to the Hubspot Blog page:

6 Simple SEO Tips For Small Business Straight From Google

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By Dave Friedman
Avenue A / Razorfish
From: ChiefMarketer.com
June 17, 2008

Dave’s Comments: Maybe I’m slow, but this article is the first time I’ve ever seen the term “social influence marketing” and I LOVE it! We Internet Marketers finally have a way of looking at and characterizing ALL of the new Web 2.0 applications from a Marketing perspective. This article by Dave Friedman (and Shiv Singh) of Avenue A / Razorfish is a gem - I highly recommend reading the entire article, especially if this term is new to you and you’re involved with Internet Marketing.

“Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that consumers can’t think for themselves. But they do influence each other when they decide what to buy.

What’s changed is that digital behavior has caught up with offline behavior. Consumers now seek advice through social networks, prediction markets, micro-blogging, location-based, networked mobile phone applications and even virtual worlds.

The question is what marketers can do to tap into this phenomenon.

To shed some light on this, I spoke with Shiv Singh, our vice president of social media and global strategic initiatives. Singh has discovered a major shift—that the rise of social media is creating a new discipline called Social Influence Marketing.

To shed some light on this, I spoke with Shiv Singh, our vice president of social media and global strategic initiatives. Singh has discovered a major shift—that the rise of social media is creating a new discipline called Social Influence Marketing.

What is it? It’s the art of employing social media as part of the entire lifecycle of a marketing campaign—and beyond. Singh is also a respected blogger on the subject (www.goingsocialnow.com).”

Read the entire article by clicking on the following link:

Social Influence Marketing: The New Way to Win Customers

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Online Advertising Remains Vibrant Despite Tough Economic Times - $5.8 Billion for Q1 ’08, Second Highest Quarter Ever

Interactive Advertising Bureau
June 17, 2008

Dave’s Comments: I know I’m repeating myself on this subject, but the beat goes on! The emergence of the Internet/Web as the most active and fastest growing segment of the entire US advertising industry continues to amaze even industry pundits. Here are the latest online ad revenue numbers from the IAB, along with a great graph showing how these numbers have grown over the last 10 years.

“The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today announced that Internet advertising revenues reached $5.8 billion for the first quarter of 2008. The 2008 first quarter revenues are an 18.2 percent increase over the same period in 2007, and represent the second highest quarter ever recorded, after Q4 2007’s $5.9 billion.

‘We continue to experience significant growth and vitality in interactive marketing, media and advertising,’ said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. ‘We expect growth to continue, as consumers spend more and more time online, and marketers find more – and more innovative – ways to reach them through digital media.’

‘The fundamentals of interactive advertising spend continues to be positive and I would expect to see continued growth in the future.’ said David Silverman, partner, Assurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers ‘The cyclical fourth quarter to first quarter drop in traditional media advertising spend, combined with an overall economic slowdown, resulted in a not so unexpected first quarter slowdown in the growth of online advertising.’”

Read the full article by clicking on the following link:

Q1 ‘08 Internet Ad Revenues Up 18.2% Year-Over-Year

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

By Tim Parry
Multichannel Merchant
June 11, 2008

Dave’s Comments: With increasing frequency, online retailers are realizing what Amazon realized (and also invented and implemented) a number of years ago - Amazon gave potential Customers the means to view opinions of existing Customers for a specific product, and since these are the “voices” most trusted by potential Customers, giving them access to this information actually increased sales overall! This short article builds on that idea with several suggestions on how to best implement “Customer Reviews” on your eCommerce Web site.

“Looking to upgrade your e-commerce site to Web 2.0? Even if you think you are behind the curve, Dave Friedman, president of the central region for Avenue A | Razorfish, says you may still need to understand what the buzz is all about.

Speaking Tuesday at Internet Retailer’s Conference and Expo, Friedman reminded the audience that Web 2.0 is more than just a new technology. Rather, Web 2.0 is the “combination of technology and design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and most notably, collaboration among users,” Friedman said, showing a slide of the Web 2.0 entry on Wikipedia.

“Because it’s technology-enabled, Web 2.0 gives users a much broader community in which they interact,” Friedman said. “People with similar interests, literally around the world, can share product experiences, brand experiences, and experiences with different retailers.”

And the stats show why Web 2.0 is important. Nielsen recently released a study that showed 78% of consumers were most influenced by word of mouth when making a buying decision. A Luxury Institute survey showed that 84% of consumers who make more than $150,000 a year use ratings and review sites to find out about products prior to purchase.

But just because you bring Web 2.0 into your e-commerce mix doesn’t mean you can sit back and bask in the success. Friedman listed four things every retailer needs to effectively harness Web 2.0.”

Read the entire article by clicking on this link:

Four Ways to Harness Web 2.0

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eMarketer
June 5, 2008

Dave’s Comments: Quite detailed report with demographics in very interesting age segments (7 segments, 15-17 all the way up to 65+ plus a “Totals” column) and communications types. Worth a look!

“Text and instant messaging are fine for friends, but not for marketers.

That was the main finding of ExactTarget’s “2008 Channel Preference Survey.”

Nearly two-thirds of US Internet users surveyed said e-mail was their preferred channel for written communications between friends, with text messaging the next-favorite choice. The phone was the most popular way to communicate with friends overall, with 41% of respondents naming it as their channel of choice.

“There is a clear trend within younger demographics toward communication via text messaging and social networks,” said Morgan Stewart, director of research and strategy at ExactTarget, in a statement.

But Mr. Stewart said those preferred personal communication channels were not necessarily also preferred channels for marketing.”

Read the entire article at:

Consumers Want Your Email

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By David Hallerman, Senior Analyst
eMarketer
JUNE 2, 2008

Dave’s Comments: An interesting subject, but what I found even more interesting in this eMarketer article is the method this analyst used to monetize the value in advertising revenue of unique visitors to major online advertising Web sites!

“The question of whether social network sites will become major centers for online marketing is one that my colleague Debra Aho Williamson and I have debated for the past couple of years—she on the yea side, and me more on the nay side.

In the spirit of that debate, I set out to write a counterpoint to her recent piece, “Will MySpace Revenues Add Up?”—but, after some digging, my point of view has changed.

That change spins on two factors: money and people. That is, do a site’s ad revenues match its traffic? The relationship of traffic to revenues is not an exact one, since it fails to factor in elements such as the amount of time people spend on a site. However, matching eyeballs to dollars builds a rough estimate of how well any Web site monetizes its audience.

To research this, I gathered eMarketer’s projections for 2008 US ad revenues at five sites—MySpace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Then, using Nielsen Online’s April 2008 data for US unique visitors to those sites and extrapolating that data across the whole year, I created a rough placeholder for unique annual visitors.

Simple math yielded the following estimates for US average online advertising revenues per unique visitor in 2008:

* Google: $65.55
* Yahoo!: $31.25
* Microsoft (MSN): $17.74
* MySpace: $12.85
* Facebook: $11.79

It is not surprising that Google makes far more from each visitor than both its portal competitors and the social networking sites. What is notable, however, is that revenues per visitor for the two largest social networks are starting to edge up on MSN’s takings.”

Read the entire article at:

Will Social Networks Remain Low-Ad Districts?

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From: Directmag.com
June 1, 2008

Dave’s Comments: Internet Advertising is on an incredible roll! And the only medium that is predicted to give “traditional” online advertising stiff competiton is another form of online advertising!

“Internet advertising in the U.S. will continue to grow fast even as the current economic woes will lead to a contraction in advertising spending overall, according to a study from market research firm IDC.

Overall Internet advertising revenue will double from $25.5 billion in 2007 to $51.1 billion in 2012, according to the report.

The Internet will go from the fifth-ranked medium to the second in five years, making it bigger than newspapers, cable TV and broadcast TV. And it will be second only to other forms of direct marketing, IDC predicted.”

Read the entire article at:

Web Advertising to Grow Despite Economy

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From: DirectMag
May 21, 2008

Dave’s Comments: This survey re-affirms the importance, now and in the future, of email communications with your Customers. Especially interesting to me was the importance that 18-34 year olds in this survey placed on email communications, now and for the next 5 years.

“Consumers prefer e-mail as a primary method of communications in their personal and business capacities and will continue to do so in the future despite the rise of online threats and the emergence of other communication channels, according to a study by Habeas.

The report also revealed an interest from consumers in gaining more control over their online interactions with businesses and an increasing level of concern over spam and virus threats reaching consumers through their mobile devices.

‘Regardless of their concerns over e-mail and online threats, consumers are becoming even more dependent on e-mail for their relationships with each other, via social networks and Web 2.0 applications, and those with whom they do business,’ said Des Cahill, CEO of the online reputation management firm.”

Read the entire article at:

Consumers Prefer E-Mail: Survey

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