New Online Destinations Create Local Marketing Opportunities For Small Businesses
These days, local marketing can seem a lot more complicated to the average small business owner than it used to be—and for very good reason. With advances in digital offerings, small businesses are now confronted with a growing range of possibilities for their ad dollars. Moreover, owners are faced with the harder task of [...]
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Eye Tracking Study: Users Largely Blind To Real-Time Results In Search
Online marketing firm OneUpWeb recently conducted an eye-tracking study about the impact of integrating real-time data into search results. The study involved 44 people divided into two groups: “consumers” and “information foragers.” The difference between the groups involved the tasks they were given:
The first group was told to search for a product they might buy, [...]
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70% of Companies Plan to Spend More on Twitter & Facebook Marketing
According to a new study by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, marketers face a conundrum when it comes to increasing their online marketing budgets in 2010.
They want to do it, but 40% of those surveyed simply don’t have the budget to spend more on marketing this year.
What to do; what to do?
I know, let us reduce our spending on print ads (41%), radio (36%), and TV (31%):
And channel those funds into Facebook and Twitter (70%), blogging (64%), and seo (64%):
Let’s hope these companies–and their agencies–can quickly figure out their ROI from social networking. Right now, only 17% of marketers say they have a good understanding of how sites such as Facebook and Twitter convert–compared to paid search ads (54%). Though those numbers stack up well against their current ROI measurement of print and radio, so maybe there’s hope. 
Online/Offline Integration: 5 Tips For Strengthening Your Brand Experience
With another holiday season behind us, retailers are busy crunching sales data to measure success and year over year revenue. However, this is also a good time to assess your company’s brand experience. And if yours needs improvement, integrating offline and online marketing can help.
How integration strengthens your brand
Integrating your offline and online marketing efforts [...]
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Study Shows That People Act Differently Online ……… Really ?!?!?!
OK, so this kind of information is not going to set anyone on their ear this morning, I get that. I also get that the online marketing community and the tech world in general is in hibernation coming off BlackCyberFridayMonday. So for a little diversion let’s start the debate as to just how functional or dysfunctional social media types are as a result of their new found ability to ‘communicate’ with others.
cnet reports that a new eMarketer study reveals that people do things in an online environment that may differ from their face to face behavior. Normally we reserve this for the negative side of behavior but it works in a positive manner as well.
Of course, being less inhibited online can lead to both positive and negative behaviors. The research firm found that the Web helps 55.6 percent of men and 51.4 percent of women feel more “able to to meet new people.” Users are also using the Web to “be empowered to do something they wanted to.” The study found that 33.9 percent of male respondents and 29.2 percent of female respondents do things on the Web that they might not otherwise feel able to do offline.
While curious I am thankful that the details of what people do or not do as a result of being in the online environment were not revealed.
Now, let’s move over to eMarketer themselves and look at a pretty chart.
Well, I find this type of research both interesting and disturbing. Basically, I am seeing that convenience trumps being real. Welcome to the new world order. I am a firm believer (but admittedly not the best practitioner) that unless you have at least had a phone conversation with someone your ‘interaction’ or ‘communication’ or ‘relationship’ is experiencing stunted growth at best and a borderline delusional aspect at worst. Go ahead and gasp and yell at me. After all the chart below shows that some of you are more likely to say something about me online than you would to my face.
All in all, I always recommend that people be aware and error on the side of caution. Adults can do what they want but you parents out there need to explain to those who are growing up in this environment what the differences are between online and offline communication. Otherwise, we may end up with generations of screen gazers who think that that guy or gal on their screen really IS a nice person and that getting on a plane to meet them in person IS a great idea. Sure that works sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t. What level of risk are you willing to accept?
As for us Internet marketers, if someone is becoming truly ‘attached’ to your brand online outside of having some fun with it and getting useful information then we are in a whole new area of research that should be looked at.
So go ahead and have a fun day of lashing out at your least favorite brands and doing something you wouldn’t do if you weren’t in your jammies in the basement with your computer!
Making Online Marketing Relevant: SMN Webcast Tuesday, Nov. 17
Tuesday at Search Marketing Now, Shari Thurow and Andrew Hally will present a webcast, “Making Online Marketing Relevant and Responsive: Tactics and a Tool for Success.”
The webcast will be in two parts: Part I covers how to segment your target audience via keywords, user response, geolocation and more. Part II looks at a [...]
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Of Conversations And Conversions
If you could have had a crystal ball in 2004, would you have known that the power of online marketing is hiding within conversations? Did you consider that the content you put on your homepage holds little salt with readers unless it can be backed up with outside information? People still want the same [...]
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Two Webcasts Next Week: Online Holiday Retail & Coordinating Online Marketing Teams
Search Marketing Now will host two free webcasts next week. On Tuesday, September 15 at 1 PM EDT, tune in for “How to Succeed Online this Holiday Shopping Season:5 Things You Can Do Today.” Shopping industry analyst Brian Smith will look at 5 actionable tactics that online merchants can do to maximize [...]
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What Is The Potential For Growth In SMB Online Marketing?
The handful of SEM companies that we work with at Palore make millions of calls to Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) every year. This raises the question of whether the market for SMB online advertising is saturated, and how much room there is for growth.
A good (albeit somewhat simplistic) way of answering that question is [...]
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