Mad 4 Blog

Big Brother isn’t just watching you. He’s also trying to sell you something.

A 2009 survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley found that two-thirds of participants opposed the idea of targeted ads. And it’s no longer about you falling into a general category and being sent ads that are geared toward your group. Today, it’s about advertising that’s specifically chosen just for you — well, at least the portrait of you that your collective data and user patterns online indicate.

An article posted last week in the New York Times showed that people’s attitudes toward personalized ads don’t come from the ad content itself. It’s not the fact that people are seeing more that intelligently caters to their interests. The problem is how it makes them feel about the companies behind those ads — the ones that would spend thousands of dollars buying personal information about an audience in order to cater marketing to them. They don’t want to click on ads for or otherwise support companies who would stoop to that level in order to contact them and presume their interest. People largely oppose the idea of having their information used to define and target them — regardless if it makes their online experience more targeted to their interests.

The article focused on the fact that a whopping 86% of respondents in a study at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania oppose political messages coming to them based on such factors as their voter registration, party affiliation, location and everyday interests. In an election year, campaigns are more than ever relying on “microtargeting” to show ads for or against candidates are based on who these marketers think you’ll elect. And that’s entirely derived from your demographics and the data you input over time on the Web. But 64% of those surveyed said they would directly rebel against any candidate who stumped their votes by buying prepackaged information about them.

Some Internet privacy watchdog groups are clamoring for more visible opt-out clauses and greater regulations regarding how websites collect and share data. On the other hand, some people interviewed said that they didn’t mind the hyper-personalized ads, as long as the means of gathering and storing data was transparent and ethical.

So what do you think? Are we entering an era of tailoring our advertising too much?

Reasons to revamp your website may range from just being sick of sameness to suspecting that it’s not performing to its maximum ability. Before you engage in the process of giving your website a makeover, it’s important to figure out what your goals are and determine how much time and money you’re willing to invest.

If you’re just seeking to change the appearance of your website for a fresh visual appeal, you might be able to do a quick and easy face lift. This might involve changing the layout or just subbing in some new graphics and a different color scheme. Some companies will try to upsell you additional changes to the templates and architecture that you may not need – or have planned in your budget.

On the other hand, you may want to take advantage of doing an overhaul all at once. Are you getting the most out of your website? Is it search engine optimized? Is it easy to navigate, and have all of the links and widgets been tested recently? How is your traffic? Do visitors convert into leads and sales as often as you’d like? You might think that just upgrading some minor aesthetics will give your company an advantage when what you really need is deeper maintenance.

Another great reason to change your old look and layout is simply because it’s an excellent excuse to reach out to your contacts – from clients and customers to colleagues and even competitors – to show off the brand-new design. You can invite everyone to take a peek and give you feedback. This will not only give your traffic a boost, but also remind everyone that your website exists as a place where they can gain information about your company, place an order or keep up to date with news – including your latest products and services. Be sure to brag about any new features and invite this influx of visitors to leave behind their contact information – such as subscribing to your newsletter or blog. Take advantage of your new website for it’s maximum potential!

Got additional thoughts and questions about giving your website a makeover? Drop us a line and let us know.

The Olympics are the most visible sporting event in the world. For example, Kantar Media reports that the 2008 Beijing Olympics was the most-watched program in TV history with nearly 8 million viewers over 17 nights of broadcast.

It’s no wonder that as London gears up to host the 2012 Summer Games, advertisers have also been boosting their sales and marketing strategies to capitalize on this one-of-a-kind opportunity.

For example, ABC News reports that Proctor & Gamble has a corporate campaign catering specifically to the Olympics as well as sponsorship arrangements with approximately 150 athletes. It expects to drive more than $500 million in sales this summer, which is five times what it earned the first time it sponsored an event, which was the 2010 Winter Games.

That year, when the Olympics were hosted in Vancouver, decimated previous records for online and mobile marketing during these popular competitions. Viewers totaled nearly 2 billion worldwide just from smartphones and the Internet. The Vancouver Games worked with nine global partners and 50 other sponsors, including GE and, of course, P&G.

This year, advertisers affiliated with 2012 Olympics marketing break down into four categories: Official Worldwide Partners (including, again, GE and P&G), Official Partners, Official Supporters and Official Supplier/Providers. The total for the London Games is 42 brand affiliates across the board in all four slots.

Naturally, we all don’t have the budgets and outreach for that kind of global marketing opportunism. But it does give smaller businesses an idea of how they can take advantage of local and topical events through regional advertising and sponsorship to also get ahead of the competition while the getting’s good.

And, of course, staking a claim on an event that’s already guaranteed to garner a lot of publicity – for example, a major standoff between local rival sports teams – can help you take advantage of the wave of public attention while saving on the usual costs of reaching such a massive audience.

For your inspiration and ours, here are the Top 10 of our favorite quotes about marketing:

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
— Mark Twain

“Increasingly, the mass marketing is turning into a mass of niches.”
— “The Long Tail” author Chris Anderson

“Bring the best of your authentic self to every opportunity.”
— “Duct Tape Marketing” author John Jantsch

“A company’s website is the key to their entire business.”
— “The Sales Lion” blogger Marcus Sheridan

“Give them quality. That’s the best kind of advertising.”
— Founder of Hershey’s Chocolate Company, Milton Hershey

“People don’t want to be sold. What people do want is news and information about the things they care about.”
— “Marketing to the Social Web” author Larry Weber

“People share, read and generally engaged with any type of content when it’s surfaced through friends and people they know and trust.”
— Facebook representative Malorie Lucich

“Your culture is your brand.”
— Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll just want something new.”
— Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs

“The Web is like your Hollywood agent: It speaks for you whenever you’re not around to comment.”
— “Trust Agents” co-authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

So we’ve spent the past two weeks talking about the appeal, growth and users of Pinterest. Now it’s time to talk about how you can harness this knowledge to market your website by using Pinterest’s social media strengths. It’s actually fairly easy to optimize any e-commerce site for Pinterest. Here are the three simple steps:

1. Update your product info. Generic photos and basic specs are not enough – how about a clever and descriptive blurb about each product? Think about cleaning up old product display images or scheduling a new photo shoot if it’s been awhile. Clean, pretty and interesting images are the main hook for earning people’s pins. You should definitely make sure that all the images and links on your website match the products and go directly to the correct sales pages.

2. Add “Pin It.” Obviously, the most important part of marketing your products and services on Pinterest is having the “Pin It” app on your pages. This means that when visitors are on your site, they can just click once to pin any item they’re looking at to their page. This will encourage people to talk about and share your items; and once your item is on their page, it links right back to your website. So any of that person’s friends who like it will come to check it out – and possibly make a purchase. While being pinned a lot can lead to sales, it’s also good to think about it in terms of spreading brand awareness; people will see and recognize your wares even if the links don’t immediately or directly convert to profit on your end.

3. Don’t oversell. The most important thing to keep in mind is that Pinterest is drawing so many members that convert their interests into sales because buyers feel like they are getting recommendations from trusted sources – i.e., because they don’t feel like they are being advertised to. That’s the very nature and appeal that’s lead to this website’s success, so any venture into Pinterest should keep in mind the site’s fun, casual, social nature. In step 1, you give visitors a reason to pin you. In step 2, you make it easy for them. These are the painfully easy but also extremely powerful tools for Pinterest social media marketing, so you won’t have to go overboard trying to push pins on people.

Contact us for additional thoughts on how you can prime your pages for Pinterest.