Call of Duty

Like I said in the previous post I will be offline till July-August of 2007 due to military obligations (unfortunatelly military service is obligatory in Greece).

My absence

It has been very looooong time for me to post! This is due to my addiction with World of Warcraft: These days I‘ve been playing for hours. That happened because I had set a goal to reach level 60 (the maximum level) before I join the army. I almost reached my goal so now I can continue my normal activities like blogging, reading, living lol. I also reached another goal of mine to make 500 $ from the internet within 2 months. Notice that I said something about army above. This August I will be called to join the army for my military obligation (yeah there are still countries in which you are obliged to join the army for a period :((( ). So I will be gone for about 12 months or maybe even more! More later...

Blogs and reality TV

At the beginning there were journals. There were online dairies in which some people used to express their thoughts and facts from their everyday life. That was the beginning of blogging. Later, too many started blogging so that online journals are a very common phenomenon. The surveillance of one’s life was supposed to be somehow exciting; now it is quite boring at least for those that do not mention something special and memorable. There is a strong resemblance with reality TV. These blogs are similar with big brother reality shows. There was not a specific theme, an important or extraordinary cause of existence. When people had enough of big brothers (or online journals) something else had to come for people not feeling bored. Blogs, just like reality TV, evolved to have a particular and theme specific topic. Nowadays there are corporate, meme games blogs, political and cultural ones, audioblogs, photoblogs and many many other theme related blogs. In recent reality TV shows there are specific goals to be fulfilled, there are specific environments and stories that set the scenarios for each one (like talent shows, survivor games, etc.). Undoubtedly the resemblance is strong and the evolution is common for that wealth of user-created content. Lastly blogs are now starting being exploited for commercial use; through advertisements and product sales blogging is even more close to reality tv.

Personal touch and human presence for online success...

I read an article about how can the human presence build online sales and increase conversion. You can find the article here: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9597.asp (in imedia connection; brought by The Marketing Experiments Journal). The article cites that just a few changes in our webpages (so that they bear a more personal touch and have a human presence) can have a major impact in sales. The experiment carried out, showed that the same page had a 40.7 percent increase in sales by just converting the text to first person, adding a photo of the writer and his/her signature. Well, next time you write something, you‘d better keep it personal and be direct...

Further reading about direct and indirect ad copy at a previous post: http://zip3.blogspot.com/2006/04/ad-copy.html

Interview with Eileen Trainor

Eileen Trainor (CyberCelt) has two blogs about advertising (CoolAdzine & Advertising for Success) a website about advertising (CoolAdz.com) and a travel blog (Texas RV Travel Blog). In this post I am taking an interview from Eileen about her blogs, the internet and her experience in the advertising industry. Enjoy...


Q: Two of your blogs are about advertising. Why is that? What are the
differences between the two blogs?

CoolAdzine for Marketers is syndicated and bring visitors to the blog
and to the associated website, CoolAdz.com, which is resource site for
advertising, promotion and design.

Advertising for Success blog began as an experiment in search engine
marketing and page rank, during the launch of an online advertising
company. With this experience, I learned the power of the blog and the
incredible potential of feed marketing.

I guess you could say CoolAdzine is more old-school marketing and that
Advertising for Success is the future.


Q: Do you believe that advertising in blogs can effectively deliver any
additional income for bloggers? What about advertisers? Do they really
enjoy any benefits?

Blogs that are updated frequently and contain professional, topical
content suitable for publication in special interest areas (such as
travel, women's issues, technology, politics and local metro information) are
ripe for making money.

Advertisers are lining up to advertise on specialty feeds, podcasts,
blog networks and gaming sites. Their target market is the 18-34
year-old adults that do not watch traditional TV, listen to AM radio or read a
newspaper offline.


Q: Some predictions about the future of online advertising / marketing and
its techniques (email, rss, blogs, podcasting, etc.)

Feed advertising, non-existent until mid-2005, generated spending of
$650,000 in 2005 and will be the fastest growing segment over the next
five years. Blog advertising accounted for $16.6 million, of total
spending on blog, podcast and feed advertising in 2005. Podcast advertising
is projected to grow larger than blog advertising by 2010.


Q: Finally, anything else you want to mention?

Blogging and feed marketing are just the frontier of a brave new web of
advertising and marketing. User-generated content is fresh and
pertinent to the times in which we live. Accent your efforts at blogging and
syndication by tagging with Technorati, del.icio.us or your own tags,
writing and submitting useful articles, joining online communities like
Gather.com, and applying for publisher status on Blogburst.com.

Eileen Trainor is a writer, webmaster and marketer with over 20 years of experience. Visit CoolAdz.com, visit her blogs on Blogger, or subscribe to her feedburner feeds: CoolAdzine and AdvertisingForSuccess

2 uses for blogs

Blogs are useful to a lot of people. I blog and I bet you blog too. Whether you have a business blog, a little mall (exploiting SEO friendly and rich content blog) or a personal diary one thing is for sure: your blog is useful. The fact is that blogs can be used literally for every use. There is no limit other than one’s imagination.

In this post I will cite the two professions that are most benefited from blogging. These are journalists and writers. Journalism through blogging is a very effective mean for establishing one’s reputation, fame, for doing one’s passion and also a must for beginners. Writers can also be great benefited: they can post small samples of their work. This is similar to offline merchandising: just think it like a bakery that uses scents to lure passersby to shop. Moreover, writers can also start their career from blogging as this can facilitate the process of being noticed and stand out from the crowd.

Because of journalists’ and writers’ products being intangible word arrays, blogging is the perfect carrier.

Tenant

Visit my new tenant (http://www.tworedpaperclips.com/). I was going to write a review about my new tenant but I won’t. I will not do it because this blog is very different and peculiar. It is about a project and it has a diary form. By reviewing it, I may spoil the concept so just pay a visit and you will understand what this is about. Oh… read the posts, they are interesting. The whole project although not innovative is really authentic so take some time.

Business Strategy Evolution: Part C

This is the third part of some thoughts about how business strategy will evolve in the future. Have a look below to see the previous part too. These were my thoughts at this time. Should I have more thoughts about this topic at a later time, I will post it.



Information Overflow

Businesses were always striving for more information to enable them decision-making and more accurate predictions. That led to advanced information systems, technological advancements, IT departments stuffed by experts, ERP, CRM and other software to handle all that information. That information race however led to information overflow. Moreover web 2.0 made information available to all consumers and facilitated its exchange and sharing thus resulting in companies having to manage that overflow both internally and externally. Nowadays companies will have to adopt sophisticated systems to easily and effectively manage information flow into the corporation, out of the corporation and furthermore track and take (some) control of the relevant information that exists out there. Imagine a dissatisfied blogger posting his/her grievances on his/her blog and even worse commenting on thousands of other about your bad customer service or product. How a company can track that information and find ways to answer back or apologize for a bad incidence?


Further Segmentation of Markets

Another characteristic of modern markets is its variety and diversity of products. A single need can now be satisfied with hundreds if not thousands of similar products. Companies have developed targeting and niche markets in order to succeed and survive in the long-term. However competition is now starting to even strike niche markets and highly targeted consumers have plenty of alternatives options. In the not to far future, businesses of all sizes will have to segment the market they deliver to, even more. They will have to develop more niches, target at even tighter groups and aim at keeping their clients loyal and satisfied. It will not be easy anymore to substitute a dissatisfied customer with a new one, so customer service and loyalty programs are number one success factors. Thus for business to find their niches, they will have to strive more: it will be difficult to track them, advertise at them and convert them to customers and later on to advocates (very loyal customers, free and quality advertisers). Businesses will have to offer a lot more to get far less that they used to. Common advertising will be highly ineffective of course.

Business Strategy Evolution: Part B

Ok, this is the second part of the evolution of business strategy. I have some thoughts but unfortunately very few spare time to write them down and post them here... This is the second part which is very short but I am already working on the third (and maybe last) part.


The Beta Products

Harsh competition forced many companies to speed the process of product development and resulted in a model where customers are also testers of the early stages of products. Beta versions are very popular and common on the internet. Furthermore beta versions apply more to services and tangible products rather than regular products (I can’t imagine Beta toothpaste!). Two are the key points when discussing the beta products: Firstly, betas mean less testing for the company thus lower investments. Lower investments lead to lower risks associated with product failure. So, we come to the second point: The collaborative model where business and customer cooperate for the interest of both (company for increased profits, customer for better experience). In that model, customers constantly give valued feedback to the company and in a way they actively participate in the product development.
So in brief, Beta products help companies be ahead of competition and lower the risk of product failure, which in normal occasions is very high (the majority of products fail either in development or at their launch).


The Experience Approach

Businesses are trying a different approach in delivering products; a holistic approach. From the core product, we have advanced to an escorting set of services as a point of differentiation. From now on, companies are starting to transform products’ & services’ consuming to “Experiences”. That is a new emerging approach that is unexploited yet. Experience means more integration of services, more customer satisfaction and a strong focus on loyalty and value for customer.

The Evolution of Business Strategy: Part A

I saw a post in one of the blogs I read (The Messaging Times) about the evolution of Strategic Management and Business Strategy. See the post here: http://www.messagingtimes.com/blog/?p=218. Dmitry Linkov (http://www.dmitrylinkov.com/) is writing his Master Diploma work and he can use some help and thoughts about the evolution of business strategy and management.

Below I post some of my thoughts about the subject… this is the first part:



SME Shelter

The internet is the last frontier for small and medium sized businesses in order to compete with the contemporary giants. I foresee two possible scenarios:

• Web 2.0 and modern internet trends will shelter small and medium sized businesses and will become the strategic center where these businesses will answer back and proactively claim customers’ attention and preference. That will happen through management of change, customer careful listening / trend watching and finally through advanced specialization, know-how, intensive and innovative ways to compete.

• Big corporations and multinationals will fast and easily respond to the latest trends such as blogging, internet affiliating and referring, infolust, etc. They will carefully adapt those latest developments and moreover they would be available to evolve those concepts to even more innovative projects and wealth channels for them.

It is highly likely that those two scenarios will both occur having several markets which are vastly segmented and others highly concentrated.


The Referring Economy

Another trend that will gain much popularity and importance is the “Referring Economy”. Referring Economy is the system in which each individual will have great referring power and he/she will be in position to make really great impact in economy and markets. This goes further than the average affiliate selling program; each of us will have a great amount of information and choices thus enabling us to refer others to use the services and consume the products either we know and trust or we have a vested interest at them. Viral marketing and word-of-mouth will be the case in the first occasion and affiliating / referring the later.

Ad Copy

Copy is the message that an ad is trying to communicate. Sometimes it is a written message in a newspaper or a website and sometimes a short video in tv or an audio file on a radio broadcast, etc. Whether written, read or transmitted in any way, copy is what the advertiser wants us to listen and pay attention to.

All advertisements tell a story; sometimes a story is more appealing or less appealing than others. So, in order to have an eye-catching, effective ad you need an attractive story but also the right copy. Think of that: The same story seems to appeal differently from storyteller to storyteller. Exactly the same applies to different copies for the same story.

Every ad message is based in either logical reasons or sentimental reasons. Sometimes it refers to both ways. There is no perfect solution; according to the product or service and the ad audience it may be preferable to enlist logical reasons (e.g. for a business software or an ERP) or sentimental reasons (e.g. for a luxurious and status car).

As regards the ad copy there are two options as well. You can either be direct to your audience or indirect. Direct copy means that it is written like you refer to the each of the audience personally while indirect is more of a general call for action. Direct copies are very common in internet ads and in infomercials. Indirect ads are more common in other media like regular tv ads and newspapers. There is also no better solution between those two. Sometimes it is more preferable to be direct and other to be indirect. An example of preferable direct copies may refer to products that sales are based in impulse purchases while in products where much consideration is needed before an action is taken, indirect messages may be better. Generally in low involvement products or services, direct ads are better. On the contrary, in high involvement products indirect messages may be better. Of course this is not a rule and doesn’t apply in all occasions.

It is also very common for ads based in sentimental reasons to use copies that respond directly to the audience, while those that cite logical reasons to have a more indirect approach.

Fine Resources on the net about how to write effective ad copies:

• http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/betteradcopy.htm

• http://www.marcusletter.com/writead.htm

New Tenant!

I am very happy to announce that I have a new tenant (this is actually the first time I use the renting feature in my blog)! It is a very good blog about advertising on the internet, online promotion and the use of technology and new developments (such as blogging) for marketing and success. The blog's name is CoolAdzine for Marketers and the blogger is CyberCelt.

I am particularly happy not only because of the relevant content but also for the quality of the posts and the freshness (at least one post every 2 days). So pay a visit, you will like it!

The url is: http://cooladzine.blogspot.com/

Most recent posts so that you have a sample:

• One answer to Problem of Behavioral Targeting
• Search Engine Optimizing for Dummies
• Merging Behavioral Targeting and Contextual Advertising
  

Sites about Small Business Resources

All Business is a very good website with resources about small business, business advice, answers from experts, business plans and many business administration and management topics (including sales, marketing, finance, accounting, etc.). The url for this site is: http://www.allbusiness.com/.

Other good sites about Business and particularly small ones are:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/ - Business and Small business resources
http://www.startupjournal.com/ - Start up Journal (Wall street journal, center for entrepreuneurs).

- Do you know of other good sites about business resources, marketing, management? Post a comment please...!

Internet marketing e-books

Lately, I‘ve been reading a lot about internet marketing and strategies to success, about web 2.0, even affiliate programs and business opportunities!

After a lot of research I have found some good e-books or better e-guides about online marketing and the use of web 2.0 to spread your message. Many of these books are written by the online marketing guru Seth Godin. Visit his blog and download his ebooks at: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/. You will find among others: Who’s there, which is about blogging (for business and not for business), flipping the funnel which is about viral internet marketing (in three editions: company, politics, non-profit). Demo e-books are also included such as Permission Marketing etc. Note that these books are very short and easy to read.

Notification on my websites

This is a notification that my sites showed in the last but one post were all deleted (Global Solutions, ERP, etc.).

There were too many sites and I couldn't manage them all. So instead of being incomplete I have chosen to delete them.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is an advanced internet marketing technique in which a website is being optimized for better ranking in search engines. Provided the fact that millions of users visit search engines such as Google and Yahoo! everyday searching for specific products or sites, a high ranking can offer a great advantage to its owner.

Search Engine Optimization is done using submissions of the sites to the engines and with keyword that attract customers (such as "free", "download", etc.) and may be searched by them. Normally those services are available by specialized companies who are responsible for tasks like these. However many companies overcharge for services like that. Although SEO is very useful it is not the perfect marketing tool and it must be combined with other marketing techniques (both internet marketing tools and traditional ones) thus internet businesses should keep the spending on SEO techniques at low levels. A balance between SEO and other marketing means should be kept because high rankings in search engines do not guarantee neither sales nor high visibility of the respective site.

Internet marketers are divided on those who are in great favor of SEO and those who believe it is not a very good investment. The best way to find out for one's individual need is to measure ROI (that is Return On Investment). A site owner can initiate a SEO and measure the outcome (cost - benefit analysis) and find out if it is a good investment (with high return that is sales) or a bad one (with low visibility and/or sales). A useful tip at this first step is to keep initial costs at low level so as to find if that technique is favorable or not.

Business Management & Marketing Website

I am in the process of making a new fantastic website / portal about marketing and business management. My site's url is: http://business-experts.atspace.com

Currently there are not enough contents but I am going to add soon. If anyone wants to contribute to this site please send me email. I will be more than glad to co-operate with a specialized marketer or business manager.


Visit Business Experts at: http://business-experts.atspace.com

Please fell free to comment on my new site and to suggest new topics or propose improvements in articles or site structure. Your help is much appreciated!