Promotion in the Internet Marketing Mix

The Rise of Online Coupons

2006-05-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

It won't be long before your parents and grandparents replace their weekly circulars and scissors with a computer screen and a printer. This weeks article discusses the rising popularity of online coupons with companies and of course the end-user. Currently, online coupons via websites and emails only account for around 15% of all coupons. However, studies conducted by analytic solutions firm Prospectiv show that over 60% of people actually prefer to receive their coupons via the internet, as seen on the chart to the right. I think it makes sense, I mean it is more convenient, and you can choose which coupons you want instead of getting tons of them in the mail that you'll never use (like my coupon for $1 off nail polish remover from Eckerds). With that said, expect your Sunday paper to become thinner and thinner due to companies opting to make their coupons available online instead of spending the extra money to print the coupons and mail them to consumers.

With more and more older consumers frequenting the internet more often, it really is a smart move for grocers such as Super Fresh and Pathmark to make their coupons available off their website. Currently, Pathmark makes their circulars available online for the consumer to view, but do not have coupons readily available for visitors to print out and use at the store. Of course, all companies who normally mail out circulars weekly should take advantage of this promotional trend on the internet. Off hand, I know companies like Staples and Best Buy would totally benefit from this considering two of their main target markets are businesses and tech-savvy individuals who prefer to buy things online. Companies will save thousands on printing and mailing costs by making these items available online. However, there are several other issues to keep in mind of course. First off, it's easier said than done to get people to start going online for their coupons when some fine individuals like my grandma have been clipping coupons for fifty years. So how do you get these people online to get their coupons? Second, companies have to implement a system that prevents people from printing out thousands of the same coupon (shouldn't be too hard though). What else? What do you guys think? As always, feel free to post. It might be awhile before my next one...

-Nick

Digital Wood...Coming Soon...

2006-04-26T20:51:00.000-04:00

...well not in that sense. The Home Depot announced today that is acquiring Home Decorators Collection, which is a large online and catalog retailer of furniture, rugs, and lighting. This addition will continue to fuel the rapid growth of Home Depot's online sales, which have doubled since last year after making more of their products available off their website. What's more is that The Home Depot also plans on adding streaming video commercials to their website from vendors who are willing to fork over the advertising big bucks. This is simply one step closer to Home Depot achieving their goal of $1 billion in online sales by 2010.

With Home Depot having diversified their product lines significantly in the past decade or so (they no longer just sell wood and wood accessories), they can now offer most of their products online to consumers who simply don't want to spend their Saturday afternoons at their local Home Depot shopping for a new lamp or bench for their garden. With more and more people turning to the internet to do most of their shopping so they can actually do things THEY ENJOY on the weekends, Home Depot is simply taking advantage and giving customers what they most desperately seek: convenience. Since the home decor industry generates roughly $18 billion in the US annually and 20% annual growth expected, I believe Home Depot is doing the right thing strategically...something that will keep them far ahead of direct competitor Lowe's and other competitor's such as Wal-Mart and Target. I personally think with the addition of Home Decorators that it is only a matter of time before Home Depot branches off their very own version of Pottery Barn or Pier 1 Imports. For now though, their promotional strategy via the internet is one of strategic brilliance. What do you guys think? Be sure to post!

-Nick

Disney Gets Goofy with Internet Marketing

2006-04-18T23:05:00.000-04:00

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-04-10-free-disney_x.htm

In an effort to complete head-on with TiVo and the DVR revolution sweeping over modern society today, Disney announced on Monday that starting May, 1 TV junkies around the globe can log onto ABC.com to watch some of their favorite shows right on their computer. While only four shows will be available next month, including popular favorites Desperate Housewives, Lost, Alias, and Commander in Chief, more are likely to follow pending TV viewers become a fan of their computer chair instead of the sofa. Users watching the shows on ABC's website will be able to rewind and fast-forward through the episodes as well as pause them, however they will have to sit through a few minutes of commercials as a small price to pay for this free service. Disney is treating this new opportunity as a test run to see if people will actually use this free service, whether it be to watch an episode you might have missed last week, or just to watch it again because it was that damn good.

My hats are off to Disney and ABC in this brilliant marketing effort, as they are the first television network to offer this type of technology for free to the masses. With more and more people accessing the internet at a high-speed/broadband connection, the possibility exists for this to happen. Most importantly however is that Disney has taken massive action to battle back against TiVo, which allows users to record episodes of their favorite shows and watch them whenever they want, as well as fast-forward through commercials. By offering these highly popular primetime shows for free on abc.com, viewers can treat it like their very own TiVo on their computer. People are also spending increasing amounts of time in front of their computer screen and less in front of the TV, so it is likely that people will adapt relatively quickly to this new technology. If it catches on, expect all the major networks to begin offering something like this to their viewers...ahh the times they are a changin'.

So will it work? Personally, if I was a huge fan of Desperate Housewives (which I clearly am...) and I missed last week's episode, I would absolutely log onto ABC's website to watch it. Like I said before, it's just like having a TiVo on your computer. Unfortunately, viewers will be forced to watch the paid advertisements that appear occasionally during the episode (no more frequent than if you were to watch the show on TV), which is something TiVo certainly does not force you to do and clears way for a whole different topic for me to discuss. Again, great job Disney for marketing ABC better than any other major network out there. Take that, UPN.

It's About Time I Wrote About Blogs

2006-04-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

As I enter my third month of dynamic, stellar blogging, I think it's about time I talked about blogs, how far they have come in the past year (34 million users up from 9 million last year) , and their future. With that said, this week's article talks about a new service called BlogBurst, created by a tech start-up company known as Pluck Corp. BlogBurst is very similar to Bloglines in that they both follow the typical syndication model, collecting blogs and RSS feeds from various locations. However, unlike Bloglines which can be customizable by the user, BlogBurst is to be used primarily by traditional media outlets, namely newspapers. What it does is collect daily blog postings from 700 different bloggers and then makes them available to these traditional publications. The point of is really is for newspapers to become more technologically involved in what they do. After all, with more and more people getting their up-to-the-minute news off the internet instead of a newspaper which is only distributed once, maybe twice a day, newspapers like The Washington Post need to find a new way to promote to their readers.

So...this is interesting. Basically what's happening here it seems is that well-reputable newspapers are becoming less concerned about what their professionally trained staff writers have to say, and more interested in what some wino from Nebraska has to say about his new microwave. Given, blogging has indeed become a worldwide phenomenon and more and more people are writing and reading what others have to say on their blogs. On the other hand, do these newspapers really need to include these "grade-making" blogs on their website? Don't they already pay people to cover the news? Personally, I don't think people need to go to the New York Times website to find a blog about Peter Jackson's sweaty undershirt collection. But maybe I'm wrong. I mean, they're just trying to be cool and give the people what they're interested in...right? What do you guys think? As always, post away until next week.

-Nick

Advertisements in Your Pocket

2006-04-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

Welcome back loyal blog readers. Hope you all had an exciting spring break filled with plenty of debauchery and one of your friends getting arrested or exploited by a foreign government. But now that we're back, the blogging must continue! This weeks article, courtesy of the fine people at BusinessWeek.com, discusses the major surge in the number of companies advertising on cell phones, as well as the great success being found by tech companies like Enpocket who are cashing in on this latest advertising craze.

Enpocket, a mobile marketing company whose data- mining software allows advertisers to more accurately target cell phone users (Khariff), is being used by several companies such as Jeep and DaimlerChrysler to target their product to the millions of consumers out there on their cell phone everyday (it is worth noting that American's ages 18-24 spend roughly 22 hours a month on their cell phones). Other companies that have added "mobile marketing" to their marketing plans include Google, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and several network and cable stations such as Fox and The Discovery Channel. This companies continue to pay more and more each year as well. Because cell phones today are capable of doing so many things, the number of ways a company can exploit this convenient communication tool to market their product or service is enormous. For example, Fox has used text messaging to help promote American Idol by allowing viewers to text in their vote for their favorite contestant. Meanwhile, Jeep and Coca-Cola have simply purchased ad space on MobiTV, a company who provides video clips to cellular services like Sprint and Cingular. For every hour of video watched by a cell phone user, approximately 3 minutes of commercials are shown promoting Jeep and Coke, among others. All said and done, the amount of money spent on mobile marketing by American-based companies is predicted to reach to over $600 million by 2009, up from $100 million in 2005.

However, with the cost of cell phone advertising rising and the blatant disinterest of cell phones users, one can only wonder if this form of advertising will actually survive. In addition, only new cell phones have the technology needed to view video feeds, which constitutes for a fair amount of ad spending in this sector. What do you guys think? Yay or nay (yay means yes) on this? Would ads popping up on your cell phone bother you, pending it didn't interrupt phone calls or text messaging? Until next time, I look forward to reading your comments.

-Nick

The MySpace for Car Lovers and Buyers

2006-03-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

Well folks, it looks as if the fine people at Edmunds have done it again. The highly popular car website, which provides visitors with all the information they can stand on virtually every car available in the US market is preparing to take their marketing efforts to the next level, as discussed in this weeks article. As many of you know, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, in addition to the rise of blogs, have taken the internet by storm and are used by everyone you know and adore (except grandma). My post this week is basically a spin-off of last weeks in that more and more companies are taking advantage of the social networking website craze. Edmunds.com has recently launced a social networking website called CarSpace, which they decree will be a place"for auto enthusiasts and car shoppers" (Rodgers, http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3587956).

So now, a few big things are happening: car lovers have a place where they can meet with others to discuss their infatuation with the 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500, neo-environmentalists can talk about how their super cool Prius is saving the environment (get a job hippie), and guys that live at home with mom can upload pictures of their Toyota Camry all tricked out with the 18 inch dubs and neon lights (get a job...loser). More importantly however, is that consumers in the market for a new or used car can now chat with those who have purchased or had significant experience with the car they are interested in. The possibilities are endless really. This is huge for Edmunds.com because not only are they pioneers in using social networking websites to further market themselves, but the additional ad revenue they will receive by launching CarSpace (still in beta testing) will definitely do wonders for Edmunds' income statement.

Prediction: Social networking websites will begin to pop-up to serve smaller homogeneous groups rather than the massive markets which MySpace caters to. Makes sense right? First Edmunds starts a site for car enthusiasts, then Betty Crocker starts one for food lovers and recipe seekers, and then the Yankees start one to join New York Yankee fans everywhere to share their common interest in the team, sell tickets, etc. Do you guys forsee this happening in the future? Will all companies eventually start their own social networking sites for their target market(s)? Let's hear it.

-Nick

Internet Advertising Will Be Even BIGGER

2006-03-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

This weeks article has just about everything to do with the future of advertising as we know it. According to "The Changing Face of Advertising in the Digital Age", the money spent on internet advertising by US companies will double by the year 2010...providing for roughly 10% of all US ad dollars. To be honest, after reading this article, I was a bit surprised; I thought it would be even more than that. For the amount of time that we spend on the internet these days, I feel like 10% is nothing. It is estimated that the average American with internet access from home spends around three hours a day on the internet. You would think that since most Americans are now spending more time in front of their computers than in front of the TV that companies would want to spend even more on internet ads, which are also significantly cheaper than the exhorbitant amount most networks charge for a thirty second commercial spot. The more time people spend online, the less time they devote attention to traditional media outlets such as TV, the radio, and newspaper. Also keep in mind that people have podcasts now so they dont have to turn on the radio as much, and many people are opting to either get their news for free off such sites as CNN or simply subscribe to their regular newspaper online and just read it there. While many larger companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Verizon have already started to pour more money into internet advertising than ever before, one must wonder if it is still even enough. My personal stance is this: less money on TV and radio (after all, who really gives a poop about radio advertising anyway?), and more on the internet. But then again, one must also ask if internet advertising is nearly as effective as advertising in traditional media. Sure more people are online than ever before and spending a lot of time there, but are they paying attention to the ads they see?

Until next week people, enjoy the NCAA Tournament - Final Four picks are UConn, Duke, Pitt, and Ohio State. Post comments!

-Nick

AOL and MySpace May Get Together...Permanently

2006-03-07T18:50:00.000-05:00

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_05/b3969023.htm

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good MySpace picture to use, so you're all gonna have to live with the yellow AIM dude hugging the AOL eye. I agree, it is lovely indeed. Anyway, this week I am going to talk about an exciting possible merger between two communication/networking interfaces we are all highly fond of. In an effort to combine the two social network giants, AOL (owned by Time Warner) is looking to purchase MySpace (owned by News Corp). This in turn will provide AOL's extremely popular Instant Messenger service (known to all of us as AIM) with a whole new platform "to better enable its users to share and create content" (Fine, 3 March 2006). Think of it as all the personal material one puts into creating their MySpace page, combined with all the communication features offered by AIM. I think this is a great idea because it will allow people to actually talk to one another instead of leaving messages for the person on their message board. It's also bound to be a big step for bands, comedians, and any other entertainers on MySpace trying to promote themselves. Fans that are into the entertainer(s) will actually have the chance to chat live with them, and vice-versa. From a promotional perspective, this is huge. And just when you thought MySpace couldn't get any more personal...

*On a side note, I have definitely noticed that MySpace is really big for middle school and high school kids, along with kids that go to community college (which is just 13th grade anyway) or commute to another local college. Facebook reigns dominant at universities populated by kids who live at their school.

If this acquisition actually goes through, it is sure to be the means to resuscitate AOL from their slip into financial statement mediocrity. Since the rise of broadband services, AOL has struggled to compete with cheaper service providers such as NetZero. Many others opt for nothing at all, and just stick with Mozilla and Internet Explorer as their internet browsers. Since AIM, arguably the most popular aspect of AOL's services, is free, I think it's time AOL really took advantage of the popularity of their service. Combined with MySpace, the advertising revenues AOL is bound to receive should be quite substantial. Who knows? Is it possible that down the road AOL will start charging money for its Instant Messaging services? I certainly hope not. What do you fine people think? Be sure to post some comments.

-Nick

Why Should I Give Search Engines My Money?

2006-03-01T17:58:00.000-05:00

http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167941

Imagine this: you are a young, motivated entrepreneur just graduating from a prestigious university. Sound familiar? Familiar enough I guess. Anyway, you worked for the man for a few years and stocked up some cash. Now it is time to move on and start your very own company, let's call it ACME, Inc., and you sell anvils and pianos.

(Picture courtesy of ACME Products)

Lucky for you, your company is going to rely on the majority of its sales to come from its website, so you get crackin' on that internet marketing to get the name of your company out there. So you make a checklist of everything you need. Website? Check. Some banner ads on another website that attracts your target market? Yea, we have a few. SEO? You know it. Submit your URL to all the major search engines? Well, let's think about this for a hot minute.

If all my dedicated readers remember from my post last week, we discussed the importance of SEO in internet marketing. What I didn't mention until now is that while SEO is great, sometimes it might be a good idea to throw the search engines some money in order to obtain a variety of different features. Since every search engine is different, several options exist for your fine new company. One of the most popular options is paid inclusion, which is now offered by most search engines. With normal inclusion, it may take up to a month before your website is indexed and appears in search results. Paid inclusion quicken up the process, so for a nominal fee your website will be listed normally within 24-48 hours. Then of course there are infamous sponsored listings that we often see on popular search engines Yahoo! and Google. For example, go to either search engine and type in "Viagra." Notice the sponsored listings all the way at the top in the blue box, as well as in the right-side of the page. These companies pay the search engine a varying amount of money to have these high listings, which are often looked at first by internet users (aka potential customers!) How it typically works is that the company selects certain keywords that they think a potential customer will type into the search engine to find what they are looking for. The company pays a certain amount of money (generally a matter of cents) for each keyword they select. Every time a consumer clicks on the link to their website, they pay Google that same amount of money. Of course, when multiple companies in competitive industries like sexual enhancement drugs all want sponsored listings, it can get competitive. The more a company is willing to pay for these keywords, the higher their search results will be. Look back at the search results for "Viagra" on Google (or click on that link). By looking at it, it seems as though RxBuyingClub.com is paying Google the highest sum for the keyword "Viagra." Just remember that while paying a search engine may help generate more traffic to your website, it's not always a guarantee. To be honest, I rarely ever click on any of the sponsored links because often times I find that it's not even what I'm looking for. I tend to settle for the regular search results instead. What about you guys? Are you the same as me or do you tend to favor sponsored links more? Be sure to send some comments my way. Also remember to read this weeks highlighted article for more info! (here it is again!)

So that about wraps it up for this week. Overall, I can say that paying for better search results on most search engines really depends on the industry in which you are competing. If you find yourself in a reatively saturated market, then paid inclusion or a sponsored listing may be the way to go to gain everyone else's attention. Like all forms of promotion, it always depends on the company. Post some comments!

-Nick

Search Engine Optimization is Key

2006-02-22T10:03:00.000-05:00

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/seo_and_your_web_site/

This week's posting comes straight from the heart...not really, but it is important. Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO by many, is no longer an option considered by some businesses, but rather a dire necessity in internet market. In a nutshell, SEO is the process of coding a website so that it will generate top search results on all search engines on the internet, from the big guys to the midgets. Each day, more and more businesses are establishing an online presence, along with more dependence on strong internet sales. As a result, clutter is becoming a drastic concern in most industries as the quest for market share becomes more difficult than skiing with a gun (bless the man who invented the Biathlon). Merely having a company website just isn't enough anymore to increase business. If the random voice from Field of Dreams was a marketing exec today, Costner's farm would have went under a long time ago. My point? If you build it, they won't always come.

The article I chose this week reflects my opinions exactly on the matter of SEO and its growing importance in the internet marketing mix. At my internship this past summer, one of the projects I worked on was incorporating SEO into our marketing plan. The goal was to work alongside the IT department and incorporate some additional code into the website, as well as rewording the body of the website so as to fill it with rich keywords relating to the business. Since they are a young start-up company, there wasn't much we had to change around. Anyway, the keywords are extremely important, as they are often what will make or break your search engine results position (also known as SERP). The keywords should be the same words someone in need of your services would be likely to type into a search engine. Since where I worked was a business brokerage on Long Island, the main keywords we used were "Business broker," "Long Island," "buy business," and "sell business." The more these words appear on the website, the higher the SERP will be for someone typing this into a search engine like Google or Yahoo.

The next step is incorporating Meta Tags into the websites code. However, many companies are starting to avoid using these because some search engines do not look at them when indexing a website (i.e. Google). In the past, several companies tried to be slick and keep typing the same keywords over and over and over again into the meta tags to generate higher search results...but you can't do that! Many search engines like Yahoo that still look at meta tags will simply ban your website if you try to be smooth and attempt to beat the system. There's a whole lot of other stuff search engines look at when indexing your website, but these are the big ones. Of course, you have to submit your websites URL to the search engines if you want any of this to happen. That's the easiest part though.

This is what Google's basic URL-submission page looks like in case you were curious.

There are also paid inclusion options on most search engines as well (I'll get into that next week). Although all search engines have their own algorithms for indexing websites, they all follow the same basic procedure. Be sure to check out the article for more information on SEO, as well as this one if you feel the need to keep feeding the beast inside you. That pretty much sums it up, so until next week people be sure to send some comments my way. See you at the bars.

-Nick

How Much Longer Before Spam Finally Gets Eaten?

2006-02-15T14:15:00.000-05:00

Howdy to all who have graced this blog and plan on reading it beyond the first post. My name is Nick, and I am graduating this May. Am I psyched? Sorta. Will I miss Delaware? I'm already coping with losing the Stone Balloon, and it hasn't been too rough thus far. I figure if I can get over that then I should be able to adjust to life out of college. I just want to know where I'll be working next year already dammit. I'm also a huge Yankees and Giants fan, but no hard feelings to all you Eagles and Red Sox fans out there...we've all had a rough past few months.

Anyway, this semester, I plan on discussing promotion in the internet market mix. I'm going to try to make it as interesting and humorous as possible, so it should be good times. I think most of us have realized that marketing on the internet has become a dire necessity for most companies trying to get ahead in their industry, regardless of how insane the industry actually is. Companies worldwide are constantly trying to come up with new internet marketing strategies to try and increase business, some of which have worked, and others just plain suck. The goal of this blog is to inform you of the rising trends in internet marketing, what works, and what you should probably avoid at all costs. Every week, I will address a different article relating to this topic, and give you the low-down on what I like, and what's about as useful as a banana in a knife fight with Hulk Hogan.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124055,00.asp

The first article I think you should all check out has to deal with Spam in 2006 and beyond. As we all know, spam is stupid, and annoying, like Paris Hilton. Spam, like Paris, is also over-used and can be seen just about anywhere at anytime. While some of us could possibly use the Viagra or the larger penis or breasts, most of us do not. So why does Spam continue to plague our email accounts everyday if it's not even an effective means of promoting a product over the internet? Even with newer technology, anti-spam software, and even federal laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, we still seem to get an abundance of it. Has anyone, ever, at anytime purchased a product after learning about it via Spam? Throw a comment my way if you have. Anyway, the whole thing stinks, but the point I am trying to make is that Spam is by no means an effective method of promotion over the internet, yet it still lingers. So how do we get rid of it once and for all? Is it possible? Personally, I think it will always be around, and we are forever destined to have our junk/bulk email folders filled to capacity. But what about this: we have "Do Not Call" lists which block companies from calling our homes, so how about a "Do Not E-Mail" list? What do you guys thinks? Throw some feedback my way.

-Nick

P.S. Photo courtesy of http://www.sackville.ednet.ns.ca/features/change/butler/spam/

First Post

2006-02-14T12:04:00.000-05:00

Howdy all. Before I start getting into my topic for the semester, I thought I would supply you all with something fun before I have to discuss promotion and internet marketing with you (not that it isn't interesting...is it?) Expect my first legit post either later today or sometime tomorrow afternoon. For now, check this out.

-Nick