Marketing Pilgrim

The results of a new poll from Harris Interactive indicate that Internet advertising isn’t as effective as search engine marketers would like to think. When asked what medium’s ads were most helpful in making purchase decisions, the 2500+ American respondents indicated that first television, then newspapers, then search engine ads. Internet banner ads fared even worse:

• 37% said television ads were most helpful in purchase decisions
• 18% said newspaper ads
• 14% said search engine ads
• 3% said radio ads
• 1% said Internet banner ads

Perhaps most revealing, however, is the math. Those numbers don’t add up to 100% because another 28% (rounding effects) said that none of those ad media were helpful in purchase decisions.

The Harris poll also asked about what kinds of ads people ignore. Again, the banner ads didn’t do so well:

• 46% tended to ignore Internet banner ads

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With Internet marketers putting the squeeze on budgets the search for the magic bullet to attract new customers continues. MediaPost gives some insight on a Merkle report that says that e-mail still is attractive to marketers but the perception from those on the receiving end may be changing as well.

The report talks about how inboxes are getting more and more cluttered with marketing messages. After looking over the findings it appears as if the direction that e-mail recipients are heading is toward having had enough of the practice. I know how I react to e-mails that I have opted – in to receive. I take a brief look at the subject line and if it is not something that can make me slow down for a second it’s deleted. Not to say that my behavior is normal but I suspect that the patience level on these techniques is waning.

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It’s time to mark an item off my Google wishlist! The Gmail team has announced that, starting this week, users will be able to use a Gmail Labs feature that allows for the email service to be used when offline.

Huzzah!

It’s something that I–and many others–have longed for. OK, maybe it wasn’t so much of a deep yearning, more of a "sure would be nice to have" feeling. Anyway, the video below explains how Gmail will use the Google’s Gears tool to provide offline email use.

So, how do you think Microsoft is reacting to this news? Is an offline Gmail more of a threat to Outlook? Have you been waiting to make the switch?

How much would you pay, if anything, to make your favorite sites ad-free? That’s the question AdAge asked consumers, and they found very interesting results. AdAge wanted to know how much a year you (the consumer) would pay to remove ads from your favorite sites per year. For a consumer’s favorite sites, you’d expect many of them to be willing to pay. Their study proved otherwise.

Only 2.4% of consumers said they would definitely pay $39.99/year for their favorites sites to go ad-free. That works out to less than $4 per month! Another 3.5% said they would be very likely. Here are the rest of the results:

I was completely blown away that 82% of consumers would be unlikely/not likely at all to pay $29.99 a year for their favorite sites to be ad-free. What if Twitter gave us that option? Would you be willing to pay to keep Twitter ad-free?

Andy’s Note: On a recent post, I was amazed at a lengthy and informative comment that was left by Lance Jepsen, author of Internet Marketing: Profits That Lie Hidden in Your Website.

With his permission, I thought you might be interested to read his advice on getting the most out of your “Refer/Tell/Recommend a Friend” efforts.

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By Lance Jepsen

I’m always asked by clients how does viral marketing apply to my business? I think the great marketer Dean Hunt said it best, “Here is the secret that no other viral marketers seem to understand… getting 10,000 visitors of which 20% are targeted is BETTER than getting 100 visitors where 100% are targeted.”

Internet history is filled with stories of great products that conquered the world solely on word-of-mouth. Think Hotmail – the free email service that spread like wildfire and was eventually acquired by Microsoft for $300 million.

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The third annual Online Customer Engagement Report–produced by online publisher E-consultancy and digital agency cScape–is now available, and examines the likely impact of a worsening economic environment on customer behavior and psychology.

The report is based on a survey of 1300 respondents and looks at how companies plan to adopt customer engagement campaigns during these tough economic times. I was asked to review the early findings and provide my observations on the data.

Here’s what jumped out at me:

Over the last 12 months, a lack of budget and time (45%) was cited as the biggest barrier to starting a customer engagement campaign. Ironically, as budgets have tightened further—ahead of tougher economic times—those same businesses are increasing their focus in this area, with 41% naming the worsening economy as the catalyst for spending more resources on customer engagement.

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By Taylor Pratt

Looking to monetize your Twitter efforts? Well now you can! Thanks to Be-A-Magpie, Twitter’s spam filters (or lack thereof) will be put to the ultimate test!

Be-A-Magpie will pay you to insert ads into your tweet stream. Advertisers will pay a Twitter user on a cost-per-thousand impression basis, and are tailored to your Twitter audience by analyzing your Twitter messages and matching keywords to various advertisers. Magpie advertisers can bid on a particular keyword and the winning bid will be shown in a person’s tweet.

By default, “Magpie-tweets” are inserted once every five tweets, but you can create a range anywhere from one Magpie-tweet per 20 tweets or as often as one Magpie-tweet per tweet.

As TechCrunch pointed out, it will be interesting to see whether or not Twitter will object to this, as Be-A-Magpie is not affiliated with Twitter.

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Is email marketing better than marketing through social networks? Yes, according to a new study from ExactTarget and Ball State University’s Center for Media Design. The study reveals that:

“. . . 18- to 34-year-olds claim they are more likely to be influenced to make purchases based on e-mail marketing messages and direct mail than marketing messages on social networks,” said Mike Bloxham, director, insight and research, Ball State University’s Center for Media Design. “It is too easy to assume that the media consumers choose for their own news, information and entertainment are, by default, the best media to use for marketing messages. This is a dangerous assumption to make in a time when consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their level of control over their media experiences.”

The study outlined six personas and how they interact with different media, including where they prefer to receive marketing messages:

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The email newsletter Daily Candy, now going on its eighth year, got a sweet deal this week. Comcast is buying the company for $125 million. Rumors were that Comcast would pay far less – around $75 million and it’s many times over their revenue.

The pithy newsletters focus on what’s hip and fashionable – marketing products to young women – and drawing national advertisers. Last year they expanded to include a kid’s edition aimed at well keeled moms. In 2006 the newsletters totaled around 2.5 million subscribers.

Daily Candy was launched in 2000 by Dany Levy with money from savings ($50,000) and investment capital ($250,000 from family and friends). In 2003, they got a further investment from Pilot Group for $3.5 million and a majority share.

Last year PaidContent questioned whether the company would stick around when the tastes of the trendy can be so fickle. I think this shows that eight years later the concept has aged well.

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Two weeks ago, Andy brought you the B2B Lead Generation handbook. Without further ado, we now bring you B2C.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Email marketing are the two best bets for your marketing dollar, according to a new report from UK Based eConsultancy in conjunction with Clash-Media. “Viral marketing” landed on the other end of the spectrum based on the feedback of 600 companies.

Some of the highlights from company respondents:

• A greater proportion of lead generation budget is being spent on online (on average, 53%) than offline (44%).
• Compared to 2007, PPC is getting a bigger proportion of online lead generation budgets even though natural search is perceived to be better value for the money.
• PPC now gets a third of this budget (33%) compared to 28% in 2007. Meanwhile, SEO now only gets 15% of the budget compared to 18% last year.

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By Michelle Greer.

It’s official. As much as people want to pile on the social media consulting gravy train to bring in the big theoretical bucks, even Biz Stone at Twitter sends email newsletters. Apparently, the guys at Twitter have cool news they want you to hear that requires more than 140 characters.

How can marketers actually send emails that people want to read, according to a study done by eROI?

• Put out something people can use. Of those who responded to the study, only 29% offer access to preferred content, 24% offer discounts/coupons, and only 22% offer some kind of contest.
• Don’t be a jerk. Only 30% of respondents to the study are offering any opt-in options.
• Your customers have different needs, so treat them that way. One-third of responders are offering no form of segmented email list at all.

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