Online marketing ad spends continue to trend up as target audiences spend more time on the Internet. Marketers are responding by shifting their marketing budgets to retain market share.

According to recent findings by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), the Internet has more than gained traction, it is the place to attract new customers – both Gen X and the baby boomers.

Not surprisingly, 16 to 24 year-olds access the Internet more frequently than they watch TV and spend 10% more time on it.  But did you know there’s been a double-digit increase in weekly Internet access among the over-55s since 2006? About a third of the current Internet users spend 16 hours or more each week on the web.

How are marketing managers responding?

• 81% of advertisers claim that their allocated online ad spend has grown in 2008 and predict that it will continue to do so in future years
• 82% of advertisers who have seen an increase in their online spend admitted it is coming directly from print media (40%), TV (39%) and increasingly direct mail (32%) budgets
• 73% are increasing their use of online marketing as an advertising medium
• 40% of advertisers now view the internet as very important in influencing purchase decisions (up from 30% in 2006), in generating sales (46% vs. 31%) and in increasing customer loyalty (23%)

In the EIAA’s survey of the 10 most popular online activities, search scored first among 87% of respondents. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), search marketing garners around 60% of online ad budgets and steady growth is expected for very good reasons – accurate target marketing and qualified leads that produce immediate returns as well as bolster offline marketing campaigns.

The results reveal that online is playing an increasingly important role in overall
advertising strategies with 38% of advertisers now regarding online as essential (just 17% in 2006). Clearly, twice as many marketing pros now get it – do you?

Contrarian view? Absolutely not. The best time to strike is when your competitors are off guard. While they gather in their conference rooms to complain about the economy, use this golden opportunity to reach out to your existing customers and find new prospects.

Far too many business owners absolutely take the wrong approach. They hunker down, cut marketing budgets and pull back. The end result is "unattended customers" and less competition for you. Businesses that cut marketing budgets also demotivate their best salespeople, which start spending more time thinking about getting a new job than a new customer.

Economic downturns are an excellent time to strengthen your relationships with both your existing customers and your competitors' customers. Odds are, they are not as busy. Are they willing to spend a little more time with you? Very possible so get in touch with them and consider the following:

• Collect testimonials: Asking for a testimonial is a contact with your customer that's not a sales call. Tell them you would like to promote the testimonial and link it to their website, which will promote them as well. Use the opportunity to show your customers you value their opinion, your business relationship, and their business (i.e., dynamic websites, blogs, Scribd, PR news, etc.);
• Survey your customers: Create an opportunity to collect feedback and discuss services and/or products you offer that they may not be fully aware of or completely understand (i.e., email marketing, custom website landing pages, etc.);
• Network: Introduce your customers to people in your network that they consider prospects and ask to meet their business colleagues and associates - an excellent source of referrals (i.e., LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, etc.), and
• Use your "consulting" skills: Help your customers and prospects save time and money by providing pertinent industry news and educational materials that will help them compete during these difficult times (i.e., email newsletters, white papers and custom publications all have high ROIs).

But don't be fooled. There is also new competition for you - competition from << Continued on digital AIM >>

[Please note we have updated our marketing news website. To receive future updates including our 2009 Marketing Plan series, add your info here | digital AIM - Email.]

Why are ads with pictures of people seeing higher response rates than those without? Human beings read a person’s face rapidly; the emotion and feelings are conveyed before the words are even noticed. A recent survey by the MarketingSherpa suggests using people photos in your online ads will increase your response rates.

What else is working for online ad design? Here’s a chart that provides insight into ad design based on an online advertising survey of marketing professionals (click on the chart to read the full article at MarketingSherpa.com):

We all know that content is king, right? Not necessarily. Too much content performs poorly if the recipient doesn't have the time to read it. And, if the goal of your email marketing content is to sell then don't dismiss targeted B-to-B promotional copy. Here's my point.

B-to-B email marketing focuses heavily on relevant content - lots of info and educational flare. Is it working? Not as well as we think in all cases according to a recent study published by the MarketingSherpa, which provides an example where a merchandiser targeted and tested promotional content against informational content. The promotional content won with 89% more CTRs and five times more revenue! You can read the entire article here, Test Shows Promotional Content Beats Information (open access closes August 27).

Take aways from the full article:

• People may not want to read about you products or services as much as you think. They might just want to buy them.
• Discount offers or coupons are common nowadays so don't hesitate to use them; almost required to get attention.
• Email marketing works best when the subject line text reflects the content closely. 
• Don't abandon educational content but condense the info as much as possible; use only the most important aspects of the message you are communicating.

Also note there are two critical items associated with successful email marketing: testing and targeting. When you know your audience (targeting - list segmentation), you should be well aware of what he or she wants - make sure you know what they want (testing). And, let them know you value their time - quickly get to the point.

You might not expect a luxury brand that is a global symbol of cosmopolitan fashion to choose MySpace to target their market. But the market is there and so is Cartier; the French brand known for their exclusive $10,000 watches, clocks and diamonds. 

The Cartier ad campaign includes a link to a Cartier mini-site where you can download free music by Lou Reed, Phoenix, Marion Cotillard, and others. Mercedes-Benz USA has used the free music download marketing strategy for several years now at their corporate site. The latest from MBUSA (excerpt of their email marketing I rec'd on June 26, 2008):

Mixed Tape 21 and Mixed Tape Music Magzine # 5 – now online
Enjoy the fifth edition of Mixed Tape Music Magazine on mercedes-benz.tv. Also online: Mixed Tape 21 with a selection of brand new tracks.

Every eight weeks, Mercedes-Benz not only presents ten handpicked tracks by international newcomers for you to check out and explore as a free download compilation at www.mercedes-benz.com/mixedtape. For added visual delights, visit Mixed Tape Music Magazine, an innovative monthly online TV show featuring audio-visual highlights from around the world, now in its fifth edition.

This month’s theme is ‘Up North’ with artists hailing from the globe’s upper reaches – think Norway, Sweden or Canada. Their music, on the other hand, is decidedly international and at home between Hip-Hop, Folk, Pop and R&B. From Sweden, we have Kocky and his singer Rosanna, Joel Alme and MC Chords – the self-proclaimed luckiest man alive - while Chris Lee represents Norway’s cutting-edge music scene. On the other side of the Atlantic, MC Moka Only and Alanis Morissette shake it up for Canada.

Enjoy the mix!

Your Mercedes-Benz Team
www.mercedes-benz.tv/mixedtape
 

Why MySpace?

MySpace is an online social gathering place for teens right? Think again. Abbey Klaassen of Advertising Age has published an article with more details. Here's an excerpt:

"There's this misperception in the market about MySpace being a youth site, a site for teens," said Travis Katz, managing director-international operations for MySpace. "But 85% of our audience in the U.S. is over 18, and 40% of all moms in U.S. are on MySpace." He claims that MySpace reaches more people making $100,000-plus than other social-network competitors, such as Facebook and Yahoo 360. Real the full Adversiting Age article here.

More info: Cartier's MySpace profile.

You wrap up the final pages of your manuscript and within three-weeks you are on the "Hot New Releases" list. Sound too good to be true? It's not and publishers are using online social networks successfully to promote their books, white papers and business services. For instance, we found this release on PRWEB (one of the better press release sites FYI):

(PRWEB) June 6, 2008 — A new book, "I Met a Greek Goddess in Nashville", self published by Kalpanik S., a previously unknown author made it to the "Hot New Releases" list on Amazon.com's Kindle Book store on June 5th, within three weeks of its publication.

"We are very pleased to see 'I Met a Greek Goddess in Nashville' achieve "Hottest New Release" within a few weeks of its publication. . . . This proves the power of the use of the New Media formats and platforms such as Kindle, Facebook, MySpace, Amapedia, YouTube and Google/ Yahoo groups." [These sites were used exclusively for publicizing the book.]

"I am a busy executive so I did not have time or energy to follow the time consuming publishing or publicizing methods" said Kalpanik S., the author . . . In place of spending my time contacting publishers and agents or sending copies of the books for book reviews, I decided to use the New Media formats, platforms and forums such as Kindle, facebook, Amapedia, MySpace and YouTube for publishing and publicizing my book. These have been instrumental in the success . . ." 

More and more people are realizing the potential associated with marketing directly to the end user online. This strategy is working because things have changed for PR; and how things have changed.

Until recently, media “press releases” were considered dead. First of all, the traditional press release has rapidly evolved with technology. We now focus on “Marketing PR,” which bypasses traditional media outlets and reaches target market directly. How so?

By preparing and sending press releases frequently via wire services, blogs, email newsletters and social networks, you can zero in on business prospects who use search engines – just about everyone in the business world. Shockingly, whether a journalist actually sees your PR or responds to it is secondary in importance.

PR is once again essential because it is cost-effective and properly managed PR campaigns are generating high ROIs.

Seriously consider incorporating PR into your annual marketing plan. More of your existing clients and prospects get to know you – you build stronger relationships and increase your referral rates, which translates to a better bottom line.  

Below you'll find an article by Mark Davies.

Here are six essential practices to maximizing your income as an Affiliate Marketer!

If you are like most new affiliate marketers, you have signed up as an affiliate and posted links and are actively promoting products but you are making few sales. Here are things that you can do to start making real profits:

#1 - Build your own Website:

You need to build your own website to promote the products. Make sure it has its own paid for domain name (mybizsite.com), not a free site like (mybizsite.othersitename.com). If you have been using free hosting, people looking at your site will not take your business seriously. If you don't know how to build a website there are many services that offer simple website building programs for a small fee or you can hire someone build a site for you. Check out elance.com where website designers will bid for the opportunity to build a site for you!

#2 - Write reviews of the products you are promoting:

You need to know the products you are promoting! It is crucial that you purchase all the products you are promoting so that you can write honest reviews about them. Let potential customers know that you are using these products and why they are worth buying! You then need to post these reviews on your website, in your newsletters and in articles.

#3 - Get yourself a Blog:

I recommend that you get a Blog and link it to your website. This will allow you to create discussions on the blog about the products you are selling and list any updates to your regular website. Blogs that are updated and posted to regularly (I recommend every other day) are indexed quicker by the search engines than are new websites, and after the blog is indexed, the pages you have linked to the blog will also get indexed. This is a very powerful way to get your site indexed and to get more links to your website. I recommend posting link to your website at the end of each post you make to your blog. This will give you even more links to your site

#4 - Write Articles:

One of the best ways to become an expert on your product is to write articles on the Internet and include a link to your website in the resource box. There are many places to submit articles and the more you write the more exposure to your website; more click thorough of your affiliate links and purchases of the products you are promoting which will in turn make you more money.

#5 - Join forums on the internet related to your products:

Go to Google and search; forums (your affiliate products), Join the forums you find After you join the forums make sure you use your signature in your posts and threads .You then need to have your website links in your signature line. Make sure you post regularly! It is important to post relevant and useful information in the forums. You will find an incredible amount of free, useful information in the forums. They are an indispensable resource. I highly recommend this tactic! Signature links are also indexed by the search engines and will provide you more links to your site thus increasing your ranking in the search engines and driving more traffic to your site!

#6 - Use text links not banners or buttons:

Due to the enormous use of pop-ups and flashy banners that we see each time we visit a website, It's much more professional looking and effective to have a text link with a few lines about the products you are promoting. Stay away from banners and pop ups, Most web surfers are sick of pop ups and have pop up blockers built into their browsers

Utilizing all of the above mentioned tactics will help your affiliate commissions grow significantly! Mark Davies the owner of http://bestinternetbusinessesreview.com the #1 site for reviews of INTERNET BUSINESSES THAT REALLY MAKE MONEY. 10,0000 articles on Making a living Online @ http://freeinternetmarketingarticles.org Mark Davies has been reviewing internet businesses for over 5 years

Source: Affiliate Information

The environmental movement is rising almost as fast as the rising cost of fossil fuel and the Internet is playing a major role. Environmentally-conscious consumers and the overall population are turning to social networks, online communities, niche-market websites and blogs for green products, hybrids, organically grown food and eco-tourism. 

Just look at some of the numbers from Sarah Radwanick's post, The Internet Goes Green:

TreeHugger.com, a popular green site, has seen visitation reach 515,000 people in March 2008, an 81% increase from March 2007.

Freecycle.org, site connects people in communities to exchange items they no longer need or want for free, gained 15% from the previous year to 322,000 visitors in March 2008.

(Reference: ComScore blog, The Internet Goes Green, by Sarah Radwanick)

Using comScore Marketer, a search intelligence tool, Sarah Radwanich investigated several green search terms and came up with the following:

Terms such as “ecotourism” and “climate change” have experienced large search query increases in the past year, with “ecotourism” growing 574% to 12,864 searches in February 2008 while “climate change” jumped 167% to 9,542 searches.

Searches for “hybrid cars” also gained (up 48% to 68,332 searches), while basic environmental word searches have also seen growth, including “recycle” (up 35% to 72,779 searches) and “pollution” (up 58% to 32,788 searches).

At AIM Custom Media, we're seeing more interest in the environment as well. One of our new clients, Eco-Gardeners.com (a new blog by The Happy Gardener), provides articles and organic gardening tips for gardening enthusiasts. In addition, they offer a full-line of organic gardening products that are safe for children, kids and your kitchen table. Their business model also includes the opportunity for passionate gardeners, and/or savvy entrepreneurs, to start their own home businesses.

The Happy Gardener, has been featured in Women's Day, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Prevention Magazine and the Richmond Times Dispatch (among others).

Annette Pelliccio, owner of The Happy Gardener, said,

 “Everyone involved with our growing company is committed to helping families learn healthier methods to benefit the future of our communities and the environment.”

Going green to gold isn't limited to gardening and numerous corporations are helping to drive the environmental moment. One book explains how, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage (you can read the reviews on Amazon).

There are several articles on this topic. Here are a few more for those interested:

• Corporations Find Business Case for Going Green (MSNBC article)
  Global giants, from Wal-Mart to HP, see cost savings, other benefits
• Corporations Finding Green in Going Green (Engadget.com article)
• Companies That Go Green Really Help (ABC News article)
  Firms Like News Corp. Set a Good Example for Climate Change, Environmentalists Say

Integration of online and offline marketing campaigns remains an effective strategy. According to a recent Google study conducted by Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo, print newspaper ads are being used effectively to increase online sales. The study found that over half (56%) of newspaper readers researched or purchased at least one product advertised in the newspaper in the last month. Of those who responded to a newspaper ad by going online, 47% went directly to a URL they saw in the ad. And, 48% of respondents said they would trust the product more if they saw it in the newspaper after seeing it online, and over half (52%) said they would be more likely to purchase that product. 

Offline custom publications are nothing new to savvy online companies and marketing departments maintain healthy budgets for in-house print magazines. Folio has an article titled, "Custom Publishing’s Potential," - the article profiles three projects and provides insight into how it’s done.

From DMNews, Custom publishing packs a marketing punch:

Custom publishing's popularity has increased dramatically in recent years, growing in just five years from a niche magazine business to a varied and mighty $55 billion industry today, according to Lori Rosen, executive director of the Custom Publishing Council (CPC). Although custom publishing is still evolving as a chan­nel, it is rapidly becoming a favored tool for building and maintaining last­ing customer relationships. 

In addition, several online services exist just to tell you where to find the best deal offline. Before burning up that expensive gas, lower your CO2 footprint and check out SalesCircular.com to find the best local deals for retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Kmart, Office Depot, Office Max, Radio Shack, Sears, Staples, Target, Wal-Mart and other select local retailers. 

Email blast after email blast with little, if any, content of value. That appears to be the email marketing strategy of business network Fast Pitch. Everyday, another email like this:

Last chance to become a Platinum Member for only $99 per year. 
Offer ends tonight at midnight (Wednesday, March 26, 2008). 

Give your profile top ranking, receive 10x more visibility, make unlimited connections, get ranked higher on search engines, post unlimited press, see who visits your profile and more… for less than $9 per month (normally $27 per month).
 
Upgrade:  http://www.[DELETED OUT OF RESPECT FOR OUR READERS TIME]

Once you click the link (above), be sure to click on the special promotion image to receive the special discount.

If you want to learn how to alienate your customers using email, just sign up at Fast Pitch - it won't take long for the onslaught of promo emails to arrive. I deleted my Fast Pitch business networking profile "fast." Maybe they should consider changing their name to, "Fast, Switch" to another online business network!

UPDATE: April 3, 2008 - More questionable tactics from Fast Pitch: 

It appears they hired people to combat negative press about them or they may be posting this b.s. themselves using one-up gmail accounts. I rec'd the following comment after publishing this post from a person claiming to be a paying customer (they didn't provide their website address or an email that shows up anywhere on the Internet BTW):

I've gotten those too.  A little annoying - sure.  But, I've got to say… of all the online business networks out there, Fast Pitch! has provided me with more valuable advice than I can remember.  After I signed up, I received 6 weeks worth of 'How To Market My Business' Advice emails from the company.  They taught me how to enhance my profile for search engine optimization, the importance of creating content, how to generate an audience for my press, blog, profile, etc…), how to make introductions to people online, and more.   In fact, I also received a Welcome Call from the company 3 days after I created my profile . . . I've always been able to reach a customer support rep through email, live chat and phone.  In fact, the CEO chatted with me the other day during what they call a virtual tradeshow - whereby hundreds of members actively networked online using webcams.  Cool stuff. I think your being a little too sensitive…

The person that submitted the comment above didn't leave a website address, I did a quick search for the "text content" of the message without the name of the company.  No surprise, the search results came up with a Blogger blog edited by the Fast Pitch owner! And, posts with the similar text and "cool stuff" claims - a mere coincidence, I doubt it. The IP address range is also from the same area, SE Florida and the owner is, where else, Florida. It appears they are paying people (or doing it themselves with fake gmail accounts) to leave positive comments about them. 

I agree with David, Fast Ditch! may be a better choice for their name. 

First, I want to thank Bill Boyer for contributing another business article for us all. I find his thoughts on business management of value and believe you will also. In fact, the following suggestions provided by Bill are often overlooked by growing business owners - or by business owners wondering why his or her business isn't growing. 

How Do I Find the Right Balance?

Managing a small company is very difficult.  J. Willard Marriott said, “Don’t do anything someone else can do for you.”  Many owners and CEO’s find this hard to do, because they know that they can do everything better than any of their employees.  When an owner thinks, “My people are not good enough to delegate to,” it really means, “I am unwilling to take a chance on my people and give them permission to fail.”  However, at some point you will run out of time.  And your company will not operate at its full potential.

There are many reasons you do not delegate, but most of them have more to do with you than with the talent of your employees.  Do you hire the best people you can?  Do you train them, either internally or using outside courses?  Do you follow up with them and give them feedback about their performance?  These issues must be addressed by you.

When you find you can no longer cope with your unrealistic workload, it is very easy to say, “I have had it up to here; you do it.”  While you think you are delegating, you may really be abdicating.  Abdication is washing your hands of the issue or the task.  Abdication will fail because you have not qualified your employees to handle the responsibility you have given them.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE
Cindy was an extremely hard worker.  She dropped out of college to start her business and had not slowed down since.  Her business had been wildly successful.  However, there were only 24 hours in a day and Cindy was starting to run out of hours.  When she was involved, the business ran very well.  But when she lost focus on the business, it did not do well.  She tried to find good employees, but in her mind she could not.  There were not enough Cindy clones running around.  No one worked hard enough or paid enough attention to detail.

Then, she broke her leg skiing.  She was confined to a hospital in another state for three weeks.  She was forced to delegate.  Surprisingly, her people performed pretty well without her.  She had taught all her employees that they did not have to solve any problems:  Cindy would rescue them.  Therefore, while she had hired good employees, she had not allowed them to achieve their potential.  She learned “the hard way” that delegation could work.

Unfortunately, she now allowed some of her employees too much latitude and did not follow-up.  Some mistakes were allowed to happen over and over, reducing her profits.  She needed to get back to an even balance.  She now has recognized that all tasks must be monitored.

SOLUTION
How do you develop your staff so that they can handle the daily activities?  First, you need to try to get the right people.  Pay them a competitive wage.  Then you must spend time and money training them.  Monitor performance and give feedback.

Start keeping a time log of your day to identify what you do with your time.  Start by delegating a few tasks.  Once a task has been mastered by the employee, pick another task.  Some of the factors to consider when delegating are:

• Difficulty of the task (the lower the level of difficultly, the more likely you should delegate it)
• Length of time to complete the task (the longer the task, the more you should delegate it)
• How often does the task arise? (the more often the task arises, the more you should delegate it)
• How difficult is the task to train? (the easier it is to train, the more you should delegate)
• What is the impact on your customers if done wrong? (the higher this is, the less likely you should delegate the task)
• How much do you like the task? (if you like the task, keep it)

Once your employees are trained and understand that you trust them, you will have more time to concentrate on growing your business and making it more profitable.  But you as the owner must build in some controls to catch any failures and initiate corrective training.  Only then can you maintain the managerial balance of delegating as much as possible while also making sure that the quality of your products and services meets your own high standards.

(Bill Boyer is the President of CEO Focus of the Tidewater, a coaching organization for small company CEO’s/owners, and an AdviCoach® with Business Advisers International, BAI-Virginia. His contact info is available here).

Organic search engine optimization (SEO) is considered a higher priority by most seasoned marketing pros when compared to pay-per-click (PPC) and other online ad programs, especially for branding campaigns. Here is one good reason why:

‘Heavy clickers’ distort online advertising 

The people clicking on your banner ads may not be the target audience you’re seeking, according to a new Starcom USA study. The study revealed that so-called “heavy clickers” are typically between the ages of 25 and 44, with a household income of under $40,000. They represent only 6% of the online population, but account for 50% of all display ad clicks.

Heavy clickers spend about four times more time online than non-heavy clickers….they aren’t necessarily brand loyal and often don’t even pay attention to the brand they are buying….

Source: BizReport.com, February 13, 2008 (Hat's off to the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce for including this piece in their email newsletter, "Business Intelligence Report," March 2008)

Assuming the above is correct, there is a tremendous amount of money being spent on 6% of the online population when you consider these recent reports published by The Internet Ad Bureau and the Kelsey Group (quote below is an excerpt of Erick Schonfeld's summary on TechCrunch here):

Two reports are out today on the size of the Internet advertising market. The Interactive Advertising Bureau has a preliminary estimate of $21.1 billion for U.S. Internet ads in 2007, a 25 percent increase over 2006….Meanwhile, the Kelsey Group puts U.S. Internet advertising at $22.5 billion for 2007…

Also according to The Kelsey Group’s Annual Forecast (2007-2012), "interactive advertising revenues will increase significantly from $45 billion in 2007 to $147 billion globally in 2012, representing a 23.4 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate)."

Getting back to the benefits of organic SEO

Organic SEO has many benefits:

• Long shelf-life, if you will. It can literally improve your website traffic and support your rankings for years.
• Lower long-term marketing costs given content, keywords, and meta-tags don't expire - a PPC ad campaign requires constant refueling.
• Requires focus on relevant content of value to your target audience. Although this is always important, it is a must for attaining desired organic SEO results.
• Helps you create valuable networking relationships with other business owners and online communities - as you get more traffic others will want to be linked to your site and the information you provide.

There are a few drawbacks. Organic SEO requires marketing savvy, some tech talent, and time to properly implement the online strategies.

We're not saying PPC advertising isn't worth considering, not at all. It comes down to your highest ROI. First, prepare your site, blog, newsletter, social networks, email, and other online materials to maximize your organic SEO. Make it a priority before you get out your wallet for that marvelous PPC ad campaign.