$1 Billion in Sales. No Advertising Required.

Good article from AdWeek covering some of the reasons why Zappo's didn't need traditional advertising to create a company with $1 Billion (with a "B") dollars a year in sales.

Some insight from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh...
"One of our core values is being open and honest. It ends up creating more trust with our customers... It's the opposite of what most businesses do."

"One disgruntled or happy employee can write something on a blog and have that read by millions. It's the same thing with a customer. Our belief is a company's culture and brand are two sides of the same coin. You can't control every touch point like you could 50 years ago."

"About 75 percent of our orders are from repeat customers. We've grown from zero to $1 billion in gross sales in 9.5 years. The No. 1 driver has been from repeat customers and word of mouth. It lets us to spend less on customer acquisition."

"There will be less reliance on advertising for a long-term, enduring brand. Word of mouth is so effective right now."

"If you go to twitter.zappos.com, you'll see all the employee Tweets. We have lots of stories of employees meeting up with each other outside of work because of Twitter. With customers we find it's good for building a more personal, emotional connection with them."

"With most Web sites, it's hard to find any contact information. We put our 1-800 number at the top of every Web page because we want to talk to our customers. It's our best branding opportunity. We have 5-10 minutes of our customer's attention where we can let our true personality shine and develop that personal connection."

The scary part?
Zappos just started a consulting group specifically created to teach other companies their method of growing business using their (proven!) non-traditional means.

The takeaway?
It's more important than ever to be perceived as a marketing and promotions expert/consultant/resource rather than a plain old media salesperson.

Facebook is free.
Twitter is free.
Domain names are less than $10 each.
Site hosting can be had for $5/month.
YouTube hosts videos for free and a myriad of sites offer podcasting and blogging options at no cost. (And we all know traditional media costs are falling like a rock.)

Your value comes from having a sound strategy to grow profits and build business for your client.

Everyone has access to the same tools.
It's what you do with them that counts.

Traditional Media Drives Interactive Usage

Survey Uncovers Drivers of Digital Influence and Reveals How Information is Shared Online
A new research study gleaned from a field of nearly 1,000 digital influencers demonstrates traditional and online media are both important sources when it comes to sharing news. The study by IM MS&L finds that traditional media play a vital role in igniting the process that leads influencers to share information online and via word of mouth.

Eight in ten influencers often go online to find out more after:

• Reading something in a magazine or newspaper (84%)
• Hearing something on TV or the Radio (84%)

"This research supports the need for influencer marketing campaigns to leverage both traditional and online tools to connect with consumers."
~ Renee Wilson
Deputy MD of MS&L New York
Director of the agency's IM MS&L practice.


Source: MSL News Release, 11/16/08.
Full release:
http://www.mslworldwide.com/in-the-news/press-releases/traditional-media-sparks-word-of-mouth

Godin Delivers the Goods

Video recording of a live seminar with Seth Godin.
Well worth the investment of an hour to view.
Pass this opportunity up at your own risk!

If You MUST Use Banners...

...at least try and use them more effectively.

In his article "The X Factor: Why banners fail" Sean X. Cummings shares some valid theories on why our sidebar 160x600 ads get better click-through rates than the 728x90 located at the top of the page.

From the article:

One of the greatest failings of the banner format is that it is peripheral to the content and not interruptive.

We all evolved as predators. Why is that relevant? Predators evolved with peripheral vision that picks up movement better than what's right in front of you. Their peripheral vision picks up ticks in movement and changes in speed better than smooth, clean movement.

Ah, now you're starting to get it --
Have.
The.
Banner…….[pause]
React.
[pause]
[pause]
[pause] Move. [pounce] Like it's stalking prey.

The consumer's eye will instinctively glance to see what it is. Don't be impressed with your smooth, animated banner approved in isolation of the consumer. It looks nicer but will not achieve your main objective: the attention of the consumer.

The technique won't work for every business or every campaign. Sean adds "It's a very effective strategy depending on your business model. An impression does not mean that the consumer ever saw the ad, it just means that the ad server delivered the 'opportunity' to see an ad. Aim for peripheral focus in your ad creation and increase the effectiveness of your campaigns."

He ends the article with line -- which is valuable advise no matter which media you're using. "Don't create ads that annoy us."

Newspapers (Try To) Think Locally for Online Ads

Nice coverage in WSJ about challenges facing "The Dead Tree Society" as they seek to increase their share of local Web dollars.

Though the article focuses on Newspapers, one need only review the Borrell Associates chart to the left in order to realize Radio has the great potential for growth in Online Advertising.

Some of the article highlights...

Scrambling Cannibals

In an effort to make up for their plunging print-ad revenues, newspaper companies have been scrambling to train their sales teams in the intricacies of selling online ads to local marketers.
But in many cases they aren't selling a lot of ads and at least some of the new ads they are managing to sell are cannibalizing their print-ad revenues, industry analysts say. A common scenario is that a trusty local print advertiser -- a car dealership, say -- that used to spend $20,000 a year on advertising might now spend a quarter of that with the newspaper online and nothing in the print product. Thus, the newspaper company is now selling more digital ads, but the new sale is taking away from its bottom line.

Losing Their Edge

Whatever edge Newspaper may have had in capturing web revenue appears to have evaporated. Newspapers now control only 27.4% of the local online ad market, down from a 35.9% share in 2006, according to Borrell.

Cracks and Gaps

There are several reasons why newspapers so far have failed to crack this market.

• Online ads are far less expensive than print ads and thus offer lower commissions, making it difficult to get salespeople to focus on selling the digital products
• Newspaper is typically selling banner ads which don't meet the needs of local businesses
• Most local online revenue growth comes from small and medium-size local businesses -- a market segment that Newspapers have typically ignored

Read the entire article here.

How/Why Consumers Share Info

ShareThis.com has just completed an extensive study on sharing with Forrester Research. Forrester and ShareThis, teamed up to find out what and how people are sharing information online with one another. The study, which will be released next week, provides some interesting statistics around how people share online information --

• 69% of adults cite email as the primary source of sharing information
• Less than 1/3 of online adults said they learned about the new content from shared content sources such as YouTube, a wiki, or social networking sites
• 84% of people still use the traditional cut and paste method to share a URL or information
• 81% of adults claim that they share to help others -- believing a person will benefit from the information they share
• Sharing increases site traffic 2x, thus increasing ad dollars or revenue for publishers
• Men are more likely to share recommendations and videos than women; 77% of adult males and 74% of younger males shared news and web links
• Women are more likely to share products or ideas they like via easy or direct sharing methods (ie texting.)

You can read the full press release here.

Brilliant Billboards Could Be Leaderboards

Here's a great example of an outdoor campaign that could easily be translated into an online campaign using our 728x90 Leaderboard banners.

Click here for the full campaign series of billboards.

Even more interesting than the campaign itself is the backstory of how it all came together and was actually executed. Click here for the full story.

Which of your clients might benefit from the creation of a compelling storyline...
Missed romance at a traffic light with that cute guy driving a TOYOTA?
A long-lost friend spotted in the aisles at KROGER?
What other variations can you create?

Got Opt-Ins? ..Now What??

So, your client ran a promotion with you that contained some sort of sign-up form which offered an "opt-in" -- a mechanism used to allow our audience to signal their interest in receiving additional information from the Advertiser. The individuals who choose to opt-in can then be used to develop permission-based marketing programs by our clients.

The very WORST thing an Advertiser can do is to let these most-qualified and most-interested leads (they responded to the Advertiser's message AND gave them permission to be contacted!) is to let them fade away unused. You wouldn't hang up the phone on someone who called your office and said they wanted to buy something, would you? The more time that passes between a person opting-in to a list and actually being contacted increases the likelyhood they will have forgotten theay actually signed up for the list in the first place and will either immediately opt-out of the first message they receive -- or worse yet -- report the message as SPAM, which can get the Advertiser immediately blacklisted by many email services (like gmail, yahoo, and aol.)

Here is some excellent advice from Kevin Sinclair at How-To B2B Articles on what your client can do to effectively build relationships with their new opt-in audience.

Tip of the Week
Want to cut word count and boost readership in one step? Showcase a Tip of the Week. You can easily brainstorm enough content for six months of weekly newsletters (you need to come up with 24 tips, which you will present weekly.)

Checklists
A good checklist is like a step-by-step how-to. Turn a lengthy advice column into one. Checklists can save a lot of time, and your readers will be delighted to get one.

Before-and-After
Who doesn't like makeovers? This is a great way to interact with clients. Invite them to send in details of whatever needs a makeover: an article, a website page, their wardrobe, then present brief solutions -- or ask for examples of their own in-house makeovers.

Source: How-To B2Barticles. Read the full article here.

Goodbye Yellow Pages?

Borrell Research predicts 39% of yellow page revenues will vanish as local advertisers shift spending to the internet.

This doesn't mean one less competitor for your Radio dollars!

Other Borrell findings report there are now more than 34,000 local sales reps peddling online products -- more than for any other medium. The chart at right shows that 84% of these reps are being fielded by newspaper and yellow pages companies, all cross-training sales reps to rush toward their most-promising growth opportunity. To date, and in the foreseeable future, directory companies have fared better than any other legacy media at this strategy, garnering about 14% of their total gross revenues from online sales.

Their report also details how online video commercials have emerged as the fastest-growing online ad format for small businesses. By 2012, they expect streaming video advertising to surpass all other formats, including banners and paid search. The report includes local online spending estimates for search advertising and streaming video for 210 markets.

Download a free executive summary of the report by clicking here.

My advice is to continue focusing on the task of finding a real customer need -- the one that goes beyond driving traffic, selling more ('whatevers'), and branding/awareness. Find the customer's pain and create a custom marketing strategy that integrates Radio and Web to provide both audience reach and message trackability in order to take their pain away. Solve the real problem and you'll have a customer for life.

Landing Page Video Piracy

Interesting take on providing engaging content on an advertising landing page:
http://www.vidsense.com/touchofgray/index.html#evtv1-2121

"Touch Of Gray" took video accessible from a video sharing site of a scene from "A Few Good Men" and embedded the video player on a promotional page. Since the video was actually provided via a social site using their embedded video player, I think this effective skirts the issue of licensing rights -- the infringer is actually the site that provides the video -- not the owner of the landing page.

We use similar reasoning when posting music videos from YouTube on the Mix site and sports videos on The Fan -- this example took it a step further by using a single advertiser. This could be a concept to exploit for advertisers of our own.

A Veterinarian landing page that displays a funny animal video...
A Sports Bar that displays a funny beer commercials...
A Travel Agency that uses a clip from the movie National Lampoon's Vacation...
An Employment Agency that uses video from Office Space...
An Insurance Agency that uses videos of catastrophes...

Lots of possibilities.

Videos Worth Viewing

A couple great media videos -- the first mocking banner ads (one of my favorite past times!) and the second mocking how pharma markets to women.

A Twist on Tips

Here's a nice twist I found on a "Top Tips" campaign...

Instead of a single sponsor, Yahoo used multiple continuing education programs (DeVry, Kaplan, etc.) to be 'featured schools' from a ten tips page that shared the best work-from-home job opportunities. To score even higher interest based on rising fuel costs, the tips article was additional tagged with the full title of "Stop Pumping Gas: Ten Hot Home Office Jobs."

Think about what multiple complementary businesses you could combine into a single Tips Campaign --
Pets, Auto, Finance, Travel, "Green", Education, Fashion, Cooking, etc... virtually limitless!

Here's a link to the full article/example:
http://education.yahoo.net/degrees/articles/featured_ten_hot_home_office_jobs.html

VBR: Staycations

With the already established MixFunGuide.com and TheFanGuide.com websites, the trend toward families cutting costs by reducing the travel and expense of their family vacation is a prime marketing challenge for our advertisers and real revenue opportunity for the creative account executive.

The latest buzzword for the trend mentioned above is "Staycation" and here is some information that can help you craft a compelling VBR that gains the attention of your prospects...

Let's start with Weber, the grill-maker, which released some survey results last month that say this is the summer of staycations and grilling. They surveyed over 1,000 people and received some interesting results:

• Among grill owners planning staycations, a whopping 80% plan to grill weekly
  
• 41% plan to grill at least several times each week
  
• Once having the term explained to them, 51% of the respondents said they plan to take one or more staycations this summer
  
• 24% who are changing their traditional summer vacations to include a staycation this year
  
• 40% say they plan to try new grilled foods or grilling recipes
  
• 13% plan to purchase a new outdoor grill this summer
  
• 7% plan to update or improve their current grill
  
• Others plan on buying grilling accessories (11%) or a grilling cookbook (8%)

What about state tourism organizations as a target?

• In Pennsylvania The Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia is pushing its staycation not only as inexpensive and educational, but as a green-friendly trip.
  
• Connecticut created a web site that highlights staycation destinations in the Constitution State and offers discounts to many of those places.
  
• The Arlington (Texas) Convention & Visitors Bureau has a local and regional campaign designed to get the locals to go to Six Flags Over Arlington and spend the night with the family in a hotel.

Retailers can be Staycation destinations, too!
Wal-Mart is making things interesting for consumers, with its subsite makeyourdollarstretch.com and a downloadable desktop Widget called 101 Days of Summer Staycations.

The Staycation trend may have been created the need to cut spending on the rising cost of gasoline (and everything else!) but it may also have been created to help the innovative marketing professionals earn additional profits this summer!

Ad Networks Devalue Content Power

Great, great, GREAT article about ESPN's view of the value of their web content versus the commoditization of internet advertising.

ESPN Turns Off Ad Nets
Excerpts from the article:
Top Web publishers are planning a revolt. Even as more prominent sites experiment with selling remnant inventory through online ad networks, and in some cases ad exchanges, ESPN.com is saying thanks, but no thanks.

ESPN's decision crystallizes a philosophical debate in the online ad sales industry that has intensified since the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual meeting last month when during a keynote address, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia media president Wenda Harris Millard gave her now famous warning against selling Web inventory like "pork bellies."

Two sides have formed—those who want to protect traditional, direct selling of premium content brands and the math-loving crowd that favors automation and data. The math lovers make the traditional sellers nervous."There is a genuine concern about commoditization of brand inventory by some of the networks," said Millard in an interview.

...ESPN, see networks as profiting on their brand investments and their user data, while also threatening their own marketer relationships. Many just think using networks devalues the power of content.

Web Terms in Plain English

I found a great resource that explains web terms in plain, simple english. Play the videos below for an easy explanation of some common terms that are integral to our client web strategy. It will be easier for you to understand, and better enable you to pass along that knowledge to your clients.

Blogs in Plain English


RSS in Plain English


Podcasting in Plain English

Knowledge is Power... and Profit

The Radio Audience Has Changed -- Has Your Marketing Strategy?
The two articles below paint a pretty clear picture of the evolution of the traditional Radio listener. Do your client proposals reflect these changes by incorporating effective Internet strategies to better reach your audience?

New ratings have been released, and a lot of stations have taken a hit. It's likely that analytics from your station website do not reflect the same data you're receiving from traditional ratings-by-sample-diary reports. Perhaps you've even seen a significant increase in Internet traffic. Do you know why? Do your clients? Are you educating them on the way today's Radio audience uses your broadcast and your website? Probably not.

The articles linked below provide valuable advice about your audience, but it's up to you to learn it and share it with your advertisers. Educating yourself on the new ways your audience uses media is the only way to continue creating more effective solutions to your client's marketing problems.

What's The Digital Application?
Interesting insights about how radio listeners -- in this case, members of station databases -- use other media and technologies, along with other revelations about how radio listeners' time is being sliced and diced by new media options.

Highlights...

• Nearly three in ten report they listen to AM/FM radio less or a lot less at home.
  
• More than 95% have access to a high-speed Internet connection.
  
• About 95% have a cell phone -- seven in ten text regularly.
  
• Nearly six in ten now own an iPod or a similar device.
  
• Four in ten have a TiVo or DVR.
  
• Over half regularly visit social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Classmates.com.
  
• More than four in ten have played Guitar Hero or Rock Band in the past year.
  
• Nearly one-fourth have participated in a fantasy league in the past year or so.
  
• More than two-thirds download/stream videos from sites like YouTube frequently/occasionally.
  
• Nearly half shop online each month.

Podcast Consumer Information
The Podcast Consumer Revealed 2008 is the third study in this annual series on podcast consumption, and contains data derived from the 2008 Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet and Multimedia study. Highlights of this study were originally presented on April 16th at ad:tech SF.

Highlights:

• The audience for both audio and video podcasts has grown tremendously since last year.
  
• Podcast listeners enjoy additional listening opportunities.
  
• Podcast consumers are extremely attractive advertising targets, though difficult to reach via traditional interruption models.
  
• Podcast consumers are heavily involved with social networking.
  
• Podcasting is a viable alternative means to target attractive consumers who are otherwise proving difficult to reach with traditional advertising.
  
• Podcasters should consider lifestyles, context and even potential 'dayparting' for their audiences.

What's Next?

Great presentation from slideshare.com.

Thanks to Bill Harman for the link.

| View | Upload your own

Tuning Out TV

An Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research TV & Technology study says some marketers have concerns about television as an ad medium and are relying more on the Web.

Some of the details of the January survey of 78 major advertisers:

• 62% said TV ads have become less effective in the past two years
• 87% will spend more on Web advertising this year
• 44% are experimenting with TV ad models to work with consumer use of digital video recorders
• 49% are working on ad models for video-on-demand programs
• 87% said branded entertainment (such as sponsored shows) will play a stronger role in TV advertising in the coming year

An especially alert Radio Account Executive could probably name at least three opportunities that already exist in our Web tools that can not only take advantage of this trend, but provide valuable VBRs for contacting targeted prospects who could take advantage of the ideas.

Sales Resources

90% of successful selling comes from continuing to educate yourself and staying self-motivated. Sales guru and best-selling author Jeffrey Gitomer calls it "kicking your own ass." Here's a list of some super sales resources that will help you improve in these all too important (and all too often overlooked) areas of sales success.

The Brand Called YOU
The Earth-shaking article that EVERY salesperson should read as they seek an identity in their industry.

SalesCaffeine eNewsletter
Weekly sales advice from Jeffrey Gitomer.

NametagTV.com
Scott Ginsberg is the master of approachability. Tune into his new web TV channels on Sales, Marketing, Service, and Entrepreneurship and be inspired by his fresh approach to business.

SalesRepRadio.com
Weekly online audio interviews with sales leaders.

JustSell.com
Daily inspirational quotes and lessons on how to be a better seller. Be sure to take a look at their archive of desktop wallpapers and free ebooks.

PromoXtra eNewsletter
Excellent daily e-blast with news on all things promotional. One of my favorite resources for ideas and sponsorship leads.

The Advertising Show
Weekly audio program on selling, marketing, and product development.

3-Minute AdAge
Daily video reports from AdAge.com

MarketingProfs "Get To The Point" eNewsletters
The MarketingProfs new "Get To The Point" series of newsletters are brilliant bite-size bits of marketing insight.

I have dozens of other favorite resources, but this is the short list. Use the comments section below to add YOUR favorites to this post.

Valuable Resource

I wanted to share this website with you -- it's dedicated to marketing stats:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/

They've got some great original charts (excellent for use in PPT proposals) , along with being a reliable news clipping/link resource for info in just about every industry.

Here are some favorites...
‘Online at Work’ Audience a Prime Target for Advertisers
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/online-at-work-audience-a-prime-target-for-advertisers-2921/

Big Shift to Online Ad Spend in $40B Global Auto Ad Market by 2011
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/big-shift-to-online-ad-spend-in-40b-global-auto-ad-market-by-2011-2743/

Vertical Search an Advertising, Revenue Opportunity for Online Publishers
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/vertical-search-an-advertising-revenue-opportunity-for-online-publishers-2627/

Ad Spend to Grow 6.7% in ‘08, Internet to Overtake Radio in ‘08 & Mags in ‘10
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/ad-spend-to-grow-67-in-08-internet-to-overtake-radio-in-08-mags-in-10-2596/

Top 5 Auto Brands by Share of Market Interest Online
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-5-auto-brands-by-share-of-market-interest-online-november-2007-2851/

Top 10 Online Retail Categories by Order Size
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/top-10-online-retail-categories-by-order-size-october-2007-2812/

Top 10 Financial Services Online Ad Spenders
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-10-financial-services-online-ad-spenders-november-2007-2791/

You can also subscribe to to a daily digest of the latest updates. Just visit http://www.marketingcharts.com/ and enter your email address in the top/right corner.