Nielsen has released a new analysis of online video viewing—more than 9.6 billion streams were viewed by an estimated 130 million web users, a nearly 9% jump over the previous month, and 38.8% increase over figures released for March 2008. And YouTube, hulu, and Yahoo! were the top three sites for streaming video, serving up more than 6 billion video streams among them. Read the entire article here.
Tags: e-marketing, ndg communications, online videoArchive for the 'advertising' Category
There is some pretty big news in the “March 2009 Global Faces and Networked Places” report on social networking from Nielsen, one of the leading global marketing and media information companies.
According to the report, “two-thirds of the world’s internet population visit social networking or blogging sites, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time….That percentage is likely to grow as time spent on social network and blogging sites is growing more than three times the rate of overall internet growth.” The report goes on to state that time spent on social media sites has overtaken personal e-mail “to become the world’s fourth most popular online sector after search, portals, and PC software applications.”
Transversely, however, the report identifies a not totally unsuspected trend: As these social networking sites become more attractive to advertisers, they become “less appealing to members who see highly-targeted ads as invading privacy.” Consumers are actually growing less tolerant to advertising on social media. And, more social media users now consider advertising on social networking sites to be an intrusion; even the number of those respondents who don’t mind being served ads if they are relevant to their interests is dropping.
What does this mean for smart marketers? That content, and the way it is delivered and transmitted, is becoming more complex than ever—and that companies must undertake careful studies of these channels before engaging them. Additionally, it also seems to indicate (though indirectly) that the e-mail component of any online campaign must be fully considered in the context of greater social media usage, necessitating more formal integration of e-mail content with social media content.
Tags: e-marketing, ndg communications, social marketing, social mediaBe loved, or at least be less annoying.
In his blog, Seth Godin shares two paths to success:
“The goal is to create a product that people love. If you can’t do that, though, perhaps you can make your service or product less annoying.”
“I think smart marketers at Apple work to make products that people love. Smart marketers at American Airlines ought to work at making an airline that isn’t annoying.”
We think Godin’s on to something here, as usual. While we can’t all be darling brands or goods or services, we can at least be ones that don’t frustrate people and deliver reasonably consistent quality.
Read the whole article here.
Tags: advertising, branding, marketing, ndg communications, product designOver at the excellent Smartblog on Social Media, Rob Birgfeld is examining exactly how sharing is going on between users—and explaining why your customers are the best marketers money can’t buy. According to Rob, “If you’re mindful of how and where they share, you’ll have true word-of-mouth working on your behalf.” Read the whole article Here.
Tags: e-marketing, interactive marketing, ndg communications, social mediaOver at Marketing Sherpa they’ve asked consumer marketers to rank the ROI of various online marketing tactics and published the rankings for Q4 2008. The results? It appears that email, SEO, and paid search continue to enjoy the best ROI. And, it seems no surprise that display advertising is taking the back seat now. Click here to read the whole article.
Tags: e-mail marketing, e-marketing, ndg communications, new home marketing, new home sales, real estate marketing, search engine optimization, SEOE-mail marketing is very effective and has a reasonably low cost compared to regular direct mail, but regular direct mail is not going away, and it can be part of an effective marketing mix to reach particular segments of the population who may not be in your e-mail lists. So let’s talk about getting the most from our “land mail” direct campaigns.
The most important thing to understand with regular direct mail is that you must determine your audience first, and then tailor your message to that audience. By getting more specific about your list, about who it is that you should be selling to, you can get better returns from more qualified leads. Conduct better research to isolate your ideal buyer characteristics in your mailing lists to get more on-target.
But direct mail now has a new helper to make your campaigns even more effective. Remember in my last post about e-mail marketing where we talked about a “website landing page” linked in the e-mail where the recipient could go to register for an event, to receive more information, or to receive a gift or a chance to win some incentive? You can do the exact same thing with direct mail by providing the website address for your campaign landing page.
Of course, it’s easier with e-mail marketing because the recipient only has to click a link in the e-mail to go to the landing page, but with a properly targeted list, a strategically crafted message, and an appropriate incentive, you can still push many direct mail recipients to the same landing page where they can provide you with solid contact information for an actionable, and most likely very qualified, lead.
And, variable printing has created the ability to further personalize mailers to each recipient’s name, interests, and correct product categories and thus make your communications more relevant to individual recipients.
If you make sure to follow these essential rules, your direct mail campaigns will yield more results and produce far more qualified leads.
Tags: advertising, direct mail, direct marketing, marketing, ndg communicationsFrequently we come across blog postings, white papers, and articles in magazines regarding the use of Flash-based websites and its negative effect on search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Almost unanimously, many who claim to be experts condemn the use of Flash and label the technology as a “death wish” for those who wish to achieve high search engine rankings, especially on Google.com.
The Facts: Optimizing Flash is not easy, but far from impossible.
Flash is now a viable technology that helps create rich online experiences and, with common sense tactics, can be optimized to target search engine results. Innovation in Flash website development practices, combined with other development technologies (like JavaScript) can now help produce high Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings for Flash websites.
In July 2008, Google and Adobe (the developers of Flash) announced a joint-venture update to resolve the Flash/SEO issue. The introduction of Google’s Flash algorithm means most Flash sites are, by default, search engine-friendly—assuming your programmer is up to date on the latest techniques required to effectively optimize Flash.
Of course, some issues remain, but these are being addressed and industry-standard work-around solutions have been developed to make Flash a viable technology to use for websites. And with Google now capturing 64% of the search engine traffic, and providing reliable indexing of Flash sites with their new algorithm, Flash should be a major component in the technical palette of every web designer and programmer.
Still Not Convinced? More in-depth technical explanations of these techniques can be found online. There are many sources where more specifics can be provided on actual SEO for Flash tactics.
Here are some examples of Flash-based websites with effective SEO from the NDG Communications portfolio:
This Flash-based website is optimized for several key phrases, but our main phrase is “Townhomes in La Plata.” Our Google SERP (search engine results page) has this site ranking consistently between #2 to #4.
Using the search phrase “Chestertown Waterfront Homes,” the Google SERP ranking for this Flash-based website is consistently #2 or #3.
So, while Flash is not necessarily the best choice for every website, it has been proven in usability research to enhance the overall user experience by making a site more interactive and intuitive. Remember, you have approximately 4 seconds to really grab a website visitor’s attention and help them make the decision to stay and consume more of your content. For now and the foreseeable future, Flash is still the best technology available to website designers to achieve real engagement and to convert visitors to registered users, and it can now be properly indexed by the world’s most dominant search engine, Google.com, ensuring that SEO goals are attainable.
Tags: e-marketing, Flash, ndg communications, SEO, website designAnother year of low expectations and even lower delivery for the ad industry at this year’s Super Bowl. Rather than howl on like every other advertising-related blog about the dire collection of hyper-inflated nonsense that was trotted out last night (Danica Patrick in the Shower? And give the Clydesdales a rest, already), we’d just like to share what was very likely the best Super Bowl ad of the entire lot:
It’s probably worth pointing out that nobody at NDG feels this way. Except for Steve, and only when the coffee runs out.
Tags: advertising, ndg communications, Super BowlCoy little campaign from (we think) a Brazilian sound production company called “Saxsofunny”:
Tags: advertising, brazil, ndg communicationsAh, Social Media. Like fire, it’s great for heating things up, but it can also burn down your house. Or, in some cases, your client roster. While Twitter is a fantastic resource and, when used the right way by diligent brand stewards, can be a part of a healthy campaign, David Henderson shares the power of the tweet to potentially destroy relationships in his blog post How Not to Be a Key Online Influencer.
Tags: social media, twitter
