Internet advertising is hot again, and for good reason - marketers are seeing highly successful campaigns with a return on investment that they cannot find in any other medium. But gone are the days of the banner ad. As illustrated by the highly successful Google IPO, the internet today is all about search.
Why is internet marketing so effective?
Search is really nothing more than the 100-year-old yellow pages model gone online. Why have print yellow pages been so effective? Because marketers get their message to consumers as they're actively making a purchasing decision. No one picks up the print yellow pages to look for a plumber unless he or she needs one.
This concept translates directly into internet yellow pages and search engines on sites like Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN. No one searches for a term unless they are ready to buy or at least are researching the topic. That's why being listed first under "new cars" is so important to Ford, or "DVD players" is to Circuit City. Similarly, it would be of great value for a real estate agent to be the first listing under "New York Real Estate" in the Yahoo! Yellow Pages or on Google.
Consumers are rapidly adopting the internet to find local products and services. Currently, it is estimated that 1/3 of all searches for local businesses are conducted on the internet, as opposed to print yellow pages. The chart below shows the ongoing migration from print to internet yellow pages. Given this trend, businesses should be moving about 1/3 of their print yellow pages advertising budget to the internet:
Because so many consumers are using the internet, and online advertising inventory is priced very inexpensively, the internet is generally the most cost- effective medium for businesses to attract new customers: ... Full Article
Walt Whitman wrote more than a century before the Internet was a gleam in anyone's eye that the "art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is
simplicity." The best Web sites incorporate into their design and communication the same time-tested trait observed by Whitman all those years ago.
Although creating an easy-to-use Web site for a small business can seem daunting, with the myriad technological tools and splashy graphics available, a few simple items are all a site really needs to get up and running.
Some of these things may seem preposterously obvious, but surf around a bit and it doesn't take long to find hundreds of businesses that forget the information consumers want most.
For starters, every site should have the company's full name and a clear, short description of what the business does. Make these two things as clear and distinct as possible. Maybe even set them off in a separate color, size or font. But make sure it's absolutely perceptible to users who you are and what you do: nothing could be more important.
Contact information is also a must. Show visitors how to reach you by phone, and make the number visible on every page of your site, designers advise. Inform people where the business is located and with whom to correspond via e-mail to answer questions or for more information. Make sure to include city, state and country. Sound silly? You're liable to get international visitors who will wonder if you're in Manchester, New Hampshire, or Manchester, England
Let Web users know what hours your business is open, and with an additional nod to worldwide users, include the time zone you're in for good measure Tell them which holidays you observe. Remember, the object of a Web site is to add value for your existing customers and to make it easy and inviting for new ones.
None of this primary contact information should be more than a click away and, most likely, should appear somewhere on the home page. An additional perk can be a map showing directions to a store location or company headquarters, if needed... Full Article
