Mad 4 Blog

Sure, it is important to have well-worded and visually appealing ads with strong brand messages. And yes, it is also imperative that these ads reach as much of your target audience as possible for maximum and repeat exposure. But you can put the most wonderful ad in front of throngs of potential buyers and still fail with poor ad placement.

Ad placement can mean a myriad of things depending upon the format of marketing being discussed. For example, website ads should be built into the main framework, such as within a sidebar, so that they show all the time on all pages of the site, regardless of new content. And you’ll want them placed ‘above the fold’—which means that viewers can see them without scrolling down. However, ad placement in a newspaper could mean placing a small ad for your gym next to an article about vitamins, rather than a page-spanning ad next to an article about things that can be done at home to save money.

Sprint recently posted an extremely concise and clever ad on CBS.com. Viewers watching the network’s television shows are exposed to two consecutive 30-second spots on every commercial break. Sprint bought an ad proclaiming they the network helps you get exactly what you want, when you want it—and to prove it, the screen simply shows a click-through button that lets the viewer skip the rest of the ad. This instant gratification associated with the brand name is extremely smart, doing more to make a good impression and convey a clear message in one or two seconds than a full-minute ad might. The problem occurs when this ad comes first in the series of two ad spots. Rather than send the viewer straight back to their program, by clicking (following the CTA) the viewer is merely rewarded with…another commercial. Simply by swapping the placement of the two ads, Sprint’s advertising endeavors could have twice the power.

Similarly, the Associated Content website raised the hackles of its loyal readers when ads were placed mid-article, interrupting their reading flow. In this case, the ads became associated with interruption and frustration—so a viewer’s first impression and relationship with that brand was negative. But while more discreet advertising has its merits, tricky ads (such as invisible links on websites) also never win consumer favor.

Marketing experts must do more than place expensive media buys for amazing creative. They must have a hand in the ad’s placement from unit purchasing to proofing the final result. And of course you’ll want your marketing team to come to your defense against the venue if an ad is inappropriately handled in any context—and prevent future mishaps.

To ensure that you’re getting the best ad placement possible, you should not only confirm that intelligent human eyes or ears land on and approve your company’s ad in every context, but also seek ways to measure the success of various ad placements. While this is easy to do online, you may have to be more clever with other marketing formats. For more on this subject, visit last week’s blog about Tracking and Coding.

For a laugh, you may want to browse this list of Top 10 Unfortunate Ad Placements.

It always makes sense to ask successfully acquired clients and customers how they came to hear about your business. By carefully comparing how well each of your advertising efforts performs, you can bulldoze past a lot of trial-and-error and simply direct your budget toward what works, both in quantitative and qualitative units. For example, if no one’s seen that ad in the newspaper but everyone heard about you from a friend or relative, you may wish to pull your print ads and focus on buzz-generating word-of-mouth campaigns–or even reward former patrons for referring a friend. And if you’re reaching a higher caliber of clientele via brochure than billboard, you’ll certainly want to bring your message down to the smaller scale, which can also cut back cost.

These days, tracking is everything when it comes to building successful campaigns. Online, it’s perfectly easy to determine how a person landed on your page; analytics mark each click-through by its referring links, search engine source, browser type and even the viewer’s physical location—it’s not only effortless, but also automatically built into most website content management systems. But even online there’s always more you can do; when it comes to e-commerce, many shopping outlets utilize codes. Asking buyers to enter a code before they take advantage of a sale helps marketers to track which sales and campaigns were more successful than others, and to help determine if shoppers heard about it from a newsletter, referral or ad. This is why you might see several usable codes available for the same sale, depending on where you hear about it.

In what other ways can coding and tracking be used in your business endeavors? Mad 4 Marketing recently posted job listings on several career search websites. But each posting required us to pay a fee, and since we weren’t sure which websites or which wording would be most successful for attracting the best new teammate, we decided to generate a few different ads. We asked job candidates on each board and posting to reply with a different subject line. This took a little more time and thought, but we were able to see from where we were getting hits, and what kind of prospective employees were nipping the bait. After the first week we cut our ad placement (and cost!) in half and only used phrasing that was clearly expressing our desires to the most qualified candidates.

Another example is Satori’s text message campaign. In 2008, we used a lot of on-the-scene guerrilla marketing to advertise for the newly opening apartment rental community in Fort Lauderdale. We wanted to reach out to those who already lived in and loved the surrounding area of South Florida. At each event (such as street fairs, art shows and the boat parade), we advertised the chance to win six months’ free rent by texting a code to a given phone number. At each event, the code differed. That way, we could see which community event had directed the most participants to our giveaway, as well as which regions or crowds were most interested in Satori. This information turned out to be extremely valuable in later marketing endeavors, such as choosing local ad placement.

The bottom line is that tracking efforts are a smart investment in the future. It means looking past today’s brochure or even tomorrow’s website, toward next year’s entire marketing strategy. Tracking provides you with the tools to always understand and surpass prior tactics–and no matter what, this means that you will ultimately succeed.

These days, it seems like everyone has a blog. In fact, most business websites would not be complete without one. The trick is to stand out from the herd—because in today’s fast-developing and competitive world of websites, just having a blog is only status quo. In fact, it may even be a waste of time and money if your voice is only going to get lost.

But before you can adequately market your blog, you have to understand the reasoning behind it. Not all techniques are suitable for all blog types, so what you use should be determined by the site’s overall goal. Some people build a blog in order to increase traffic to their website, while others create blogs in order to generate revenue. Of course, many blogs are also stand-alone pages created to exist as singular discussion forums.

In terms of marketing, most blogs are used to enhance SEO. They help business-oriented websites attract attention, build brands and communicate with prospective clientele. With this in mind, here are three top tips for marketing your blog:

1) Create an e-Newsletter.

Whether or not your company already sends out a regular newsletter, embedding links to your blog or even re-posting eye-catching selections from its posts might engage current e-mail recipients while informing new subscribers that the blog even exists. You can also see who’s using the links to click through to the blog to determine which posts and topics are generating the most interest. Just remember, re-posting your blog posts in full is a bad idea; it deters readers from ever actually needing to visit your website.

2) Build a Community.

Having individuals visit your blog on a regular basis is excellent. But each lone reader is actually an opportunity to expand your entire community. The first thing you want to do is inspire readers to leave comments so that they can bond with other forum members, who can serve as a reason for readers to return. This can often be done by including interesting topics and asking questions directly within the content of your post. You’ll also want to visit blogs similar to your own and get to know the readership there; as discussed above, it’s easy to make connections and participate by replying to others or leaving your own comments. You can also ask these website owners if they’d like to participate in cross-posting, guest posting, link exchanges or other ideas that allow websites serving the same readership to gain exposure on your blog while you contribute a new voice to theirs. In blogging, there is a focus on community, not a sense of competitiveness—and this benefits everyone in your interest group or business field.

3) Ensure Consistency and Quality.

No matter how well you succeed in attracting readers to your blog, your endeavors can never succeed if visitors only stop by once. In the blogging world as much as in the real world, first impressions are vital. To keep readers coming back again and again, an attractive website with appealing content is necessary. Next week, we further discuss how to encourage return readers and turn them into customers and clients–or just loyal fans.

So come back next week to find part two of the Top Ways to Market Your Blog.

Did you know that female buyers control most spending on the Internet? In fact, over 20% of women are likely to shop online once per day. Proclivity to complete a transaction is not the only thing that makes women a highly profitable market to reach online. About 75% of women also like to provide feedback and participate in panels about the products and services they have encountered. This means that building a relationship with women online means that you can capitalize on insightful feedback.

Women are also valuable subjects of online marketing because they’re likely to promote your ads to their friends. A striking 91% of women are likely to pass on ads they like to others, according to research by Ogilvy & Mather. And the average woman’s contact list holds 171 subjects. That means a successful advertisement on your end can prospectively be passed along to many, many more eyes—and a recommendation from a friend on top of a great ad is the kind of marketing that would benefit any business. Making your ads easy to transfer, share or promote is a surefire way to take advantage of this angle.

Of course, before you charge into the online advertising fray, it’s important that you really understand your audience. For example, the rise of mom-themed web forums may lead some marketers to believe that women hold sway over the online marketing because they’re budgeting for a family or browsing child-related sites. But before you bust your budget on mom-centric online ads, you should know that the actual numbers show that only about half of the women shopping online are also mothers. Because women are barraged with marketing from all angles online, they’re increasingly selective about what they respond to, which means that you must grasp what women want from online ads.

What Women Want from an Online Ad

•    Personalization – When it comes to advertising to women online, targeting may be surprisingly successful. According to a recent study by Q Interactive, a number of surveyed women stated that they like it when ads seem tailored to speak to them. Targeted ads can range from the highly personal (such as integrating a person’s name or region) to the more common interest-based ads which touch upon gardening or soccer or cooking or another related theme that the woman has previously related to, demonstrating an understanding of the individual woman’s likes and needs. More to the point, a majority of women stated that they would actually be interested in seeing more targeted ads from brands that they trust.

•    Special Discounts – Q Interactive also sought to discover what makes online advertising most effective to women. As it turns out, most women prefer ads that offer incentives for them to click through, such as deals and special offers. The second-largest group of women claimed that they want to see brands try to learn more about their needs before trying to initiate a relationship. Close behind, women asked for ads that show further information about the product. In last place, a very small selection of women thought that online ads could benefit from consistency of communication.