Snap judgments

By: Unknown on 5:24 PM

  WHOLE generation of young people has been snapped up by Snapchat. Every day around 100m people worldwide use the smartphone app to send (sometimes saucy) photos, videos and messages that quickly disappear from the recipient’s phone. Some 60% of American smartphone users between the ages of 13 and 34 use the service, the firm claims. It is among the most highly valued private technology firms in the world: its most recent financing round, in May, put a $16 billion price tag on it.

The app’s impermanent messages, which help protect the sender’s privacy, have made it popular among young users. So has its clunky user interface, which dissuades parents from using the app. One of Snapchat’s most-used features is “stories”—mash-ups of videos that users take with their smartphones’ cameras, recapping their day’s activities, over which they can doodle and write captions before sharing them with friends. Perfect for the “selfie” generation.

In recent months advertisers, eager to reach young consumers who spend less time with older media, have become captivated by Snapchat’s potential. Both Facebook and Google reportedly tried to buy it in 2013. Snapchat preferred to go it alone, and must now balance the interests of users and advertisers.

It has experimented with different ad formats. When it first started allowing commercials a year ago, brands could pay for their “stories” to be seen, but now they cannot. “It’s frustrating when brands come onto a platform and try to act like people, because brands aren’t people,” Evan Spiegel, the firm’s 25-year-old boss, has said. Nor does Mr Spiegel want to slip ads into personal messaging streams, because users would find this intrusive. For the same reason, Facebook’s messaging apps, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, do not yet offer ads.

Snapchat was a pioneer of “vertical” video ads, which play upright, the way people hold their smartphones, and have higher completion rates. Like Facebook, which recently started embedding news articles in its social-networking app, Snapchat has put more emphasis on attracting professional content, which keeps users’ attention for longer, giving advertisers more opportunities to reach them. About a dozen media firms, including CNN and the Daily Mail, now host selections of news articles in a section of Snapchat called “Discover”. Publishers sell ads within their articles and share the revenue with Snapchat.

It is early days, and as yet only a trickle of revenue is coming in. This makes Snapchat’s valuation all the more eye-popping: Twitter, which is stockmarket-listed and had $1.4 billion in revenue last year, is supposedly worth only about $1 billion more. When Snapchat goes public, as is expected in the next couple of years, it will face an audience far more critical than its rapt users currently are, and judgments that will not conveniently disappear at the end of each day.

source: The Economist

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5 Pay-Per-Click Mistakes That cost money

By: Unknown on 2:22 PM

One of the fastest ways to draw more potential customers to your website is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Using tools such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and others, business owners can display ads in the sponsored results section of search results pages and pay a fee each time someone clicks through from the ad to their site.

But PPC can be risky if not executed correctly. You can wind up spending a significant amount of money without getting the number of new customers you were hoping for.

If you're new to PPC advertising, don't panic. It is possible to learn how to run a profitable campaign through practice and experimentation. Here are five costly PPC mistakes you'll want to avoid when starting out:

 Sending visitors to your home page

Say you're running a PPC ad for the keyword "Nikon D90 digital camera" -- a product you sell on your website. You set up the ad to run whenever this keyword is searched for on your chosen engine, and you use a URL that redirects readers who click on your ad to your site's home page. Now, this user must painstakingly click through your website's navigation to find this exact camera model -- if he or she even bothers to stick around.

In this case, you took an engaged, targeted visitor and forced him or her to work for the information you promised. A better approach would have been a link to the camera's product page, avoiding any frustration and bringing your visitors one step closer to completing their purchase.

Whenever possible, drive PPC visitors to targeted landing pages. If you don't have a product-specific landing page to refer visitors to, create custom landing pages that provide the exact information the reader is looking for.

Sending visitors to your contact page

Some businesses send PPC visitors directly to their website's contact page to force email newsletter opt-ins or lead generation form submissions. This can not only frustrate visitors and hurt the chances of making a sale, but it also can run afoul of PPC platform guidelines.

If you're advertising through Google AdWords, for example, be aware that requiring visitors to fill out contact forms in exchange for something free goes against the search giant's guidelines.

 Failing to split-test your ad text

To produce the most effective results, avoid running PPC ads without testing them first. You can split-test your ads by creating multiple versions of the ad's text for each of your PPC ad groups. That way, you can determine which specific wording leads to the most click throughs and on-site conversions.

Nearly all PPC engines allow you to split-test, but ensure that your ad variations will be displayed at random so they generate meaningful data. Some PPC platforms use predictive algorithms to display the ad variation that's most likely to be successful, but this diminishes the integrity of your split-test data. You can find instructions on how to ensure that your ad versions are displayed randomly in your PPC engine's help section.

 Relying entirely on 'broad match' keyword ads

Broad match keyword ads are displayed whenever all or part of your target keyword phrase is searched for, offering the greatest traffic potential. But you may be sacrificing relevance for reach.

For example, suppose you're a law firm targeting the phrase "divorce attorney" with a broad match ad. Your ad should appear on the results page for the search query "divorce attorney," but it could also show up for the phrases "reasons for divorce," "dui attorney" or "dealing with divorce for children." In these cases, you may be wasting money on irrelevant searches.

Setting your ads to phrase or exact match might decrease your traffic potential, but help ensure that your ads appear for search queries that are most relevant to your business.

 Not taking advantage of negative keywords

Many people fail to use negative keywords, which can prevent ads from displaying whenever certain words are searched for. Following the example above, adding the word "dui" as a negative keyword within your PPC ad group would prevent your "divorce attorney" broad match ad from appearing in results for "dui attorney."

Adding negative keywords to your PPC campaigns is one way to control relevancy without eliminating the potential traffic of broad match ads. But you'll need to devote time to finding the many possible negative keywords that could influence your campaign.

source : Entrepreneur

by : Eric Siu

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Moving to direct mail advertising.

By: Unknown on 10:38 AM

Once you start moving into direct mail advertising, you'll never come back to a different medium in a way that is serious. Oh, you may do different things in regards to promotion and marketing, however you'll always come back to direct mail. i'm hoping you'll be able to feel the rush of sending millions of pieces of direct mail out and after that getting thousands of them back, similarly as cash orders, checks, money and charge card authorizations for the services and products.

There are the large commerce reference books accessible in market that has all of the mailing lists which are for rent; they do a write-up on each one of the list supervisors as well as the lists, and you're able to do your analysis there quite only. however I have got a a lot of straightforward methodology that works for me. You see, the difficulty is that all the large list supervisors make each of their listings seem exactly the same. they're all wanting to get those lists to be rented by you, so as that they say all forms of things that are wonderful. you do not understand who to contemplate. Thus, you're better off hiring a mailing list agent that's good to find you lists to lease as well as to head out. Trust their views; they're working on your own behalf. Not all the direct mail letters receiver lists you examine are probably to function nicely. however as long as you analyze new lists your agent proposes, you'll locate that little % of them that do operate nicely, after which it's possible to add your toolbox and those lists.

Work with a few of agents that have great reputations, that are honest those who have integrity, and permit them to go out there and remain in the phone throughout the day, dialling and smiling and talking to alternative list agents as well as other list managers. that's actually how straight it is with us. it's worth the price, that you need to be a lot more than happy to pay since they're supplying an excellent moneymaking service for you personally.

There are many different ways of planning direct mail advertising letter however if you are looking for uniqueness then certainly you need to rent the professionals who have good success rate in such type of marketing business.

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Branding and Creating a virtual Presence

By: Unknown on 1:31 PM

Internet has wholly changed the means by which customers see promoting and advertising. you may realize multiple of techniques to showcase your brand or product on-line. each effective business and brand is aware of the world of the planet Wide net as well as the impact of getting an online presence for your business.

With the large numbers of individuals surfing the net per minute, it needs no rocket science to determine what an internet presence would mean for any brand, merchandise or business.

Due to the wide coverage of the web and also the several resources out there within our grasp that creates using the web as a marketing strategy pretty simple, building a winning brand has been made simple, easy and comparatively fast. With the advent of the various social media, it takes some click for the world to know concerning your brand and with effective net marketing ways, ahead of take care of getting sooner than your competitions and branding your product and organization among the highest players in your industry.

The question of how to establish a web presence is imminent, having mentioned the many advantages the web provides. the easy truth concerning establishing on-line presence is that you simply need to be online. It takes more than beginning net marketing to possess a winning on-line campaign; one really must be active and artistic in using the various net selling tools.

One of the simplest ways to create a web presence is to make use of the various social media networks out there. In fact, social media is maybe the simplest way to build your brand and the opening in establishing a web presence. With the various social media sites like "Facebook" and "Twitter", you meet all types of people and businesses will leverage on this to spread the word concerning what they are doing. the simplest part of this can be the cost concerned. as a result of most of those social networking sites are completely free, all you need to invest in with is some time and a whole ton of ability.

The use of YouTube and Skype is another way of creating a web presence. This also relates to social network but primarily deals with videos and cameras. With these tools, you'll talk to your target market as you sit in front of the camera and this may be terribly significant in your on-line business campaign as folks tend to react more and simply remember spoken words and actions as opposed to written posts.

The primary focus once establishing a web presence is to let folks see and feel you thrught the pc. you must therefore let folks see you as a person and not a automaton ,and to find it simple to relate with you.

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5 Branding and Logo Mistakes to avert

By: Unknown on 6:30 AM

The logo is arguably one of the most necessary aspects of your overall branding strategy. Your company's logo should communicate the personality of your brand and instantly convey the company's values and emotions. Your customers should ne'er got to work to figure out your brand. Instead, it should tell a story concerning your brand in a manner that is clear, quick, and concise. but good graphic and logo style isn't a particular science, however rather equal elements science, art, and psychology. Here are 5 branding and logo mistakes to avoid.

Mistake 1: Low Resolution Graphics

With mobile access to on-line websites and platforms taking the lead in terms of the first method in which folks access the web. And, since the mobile generation is here to remain, it's currently critical that your logos will scale to fit any viewing device. pictures need to retain maintain quality with no pixelation problems. Bitmaps have fallen out of ordinary practice, and most designers have currently clearly turned to vector graphics that don't lose quality as they scale.

Mistake 2: Following Trends / Fads Blindly

In advertising, marketing, and design there's always some new hot trend hitting the market. as an example, recently there has been an increasing trend towards a flat, minimalistic website style. while more and more sites are turning to this type of style, it's natural to ask yourself if this trend can last. rather than following trends, you must approach your logo like a future investment, one that will have to last you for years, not simply this season.

Mistake 3: Poor Use of Typefaces

Choosing a font is one of the toughest decisions to remove from your own emotional bias. the incorrect font will look silly at the best, and fatal at the worst. for example, a professional person wouldn't use Comic Sans in their logo because it'd seem too fun and light-hearted, and wouldn't appeal to clients who are searching for somebody who can take them seriously and may be trusted.

Mistake 4: copying other Brands

Imitation is the sincerest type of flattery, however in logo style it's the surest path to a stunted logo that may probably not receive a lot of awareness and recognition. For one issue, it communicates that your business is unoriginal, which and that very little capability for creativity. It conveys laziness on behalf of the business, and suggest that the company is riding on the rear of another company's success. Not a good impression to provide your customers.

Mistake 5: Over Complicating Your logo

In graphic style, it will be tempting to create logos that actually show off your skills in style and graphic manipulation. However, if you get complex in your style, it will typically fall flat. Your logo has to be ready to be utilized in all situations and across a variety of platforms like web and print. you also need to consider that once your logo gets scaled down for mobile media or little graphic advertisements an over difficult logo won't look as good.

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