Many people wonder how important it is to have quickly loading pages when it comes to SEO. Right now Google considers over 200 things when determining a website’s relevance. As you can maybe tell by the video below, Google right now is not considering speed as a factor, however, it’s always good to keep those pages loading quickly. You only get one chance to make a first impression.
The Marlboro Woman?
It’s hard to believe, but initially, Marlboro cigarettes were marketed to women. Why would a company market to only one group of people? I can see if you’re selling Women’s feminine products… but cigarettes? Marlboro cigarettes were initially sold as a premium filtered cigarette for women.
In 1955, that all changed. During that year, the Marlboro man was created. How could any man resist that imagery? Alone, out on his horse, self-reliant, strong, etc. The image goes a long way. It made Marlboro cigarettes the bestselling brand of cigarettes in the world! As we can see from the Marlboro Man campaign, developing a strongly imaged campaign can help potential customers desire your product even if it’s likely to hasten their death!
Everyone wants to go to Margaritaville. It’s a wonderfully created fantasy land that has made Jimmy Buffett rich. Its steel drum music, sitting under a palm tree, drinking a Corona beer fantasy, has been a very successful campaign for Jimmy Buffett and Corona Beer. It was so successful, that Jimmy Buffett now has his own beer line, Landshark beer. These are just two of many examples of how a cleverly crafted advertising campaign using imagery can help you sell you products or services.
Michael S. MacDougall is the President of The Darwin Agency, a Marketing and Advertising agency, with offices in Denver Colorado, and South Florida.
Notice how there is no mention of the quality of the product, etc. Stricly Branding.
Marketing is my business, and I more than most people, know about the power of advertising, and the effect it can have on everyday life. Having said that, I’d like to strangle the N.W. Ayer and Son Advertising agency for what they did.
Back in 1938, the diamond industry was failing. The DeBeers mining company hired the above mentioned advertising agency to help with their sinking sales. The campaign that the agency came up with was called “a diamond is forever”. They then proceeded to promote the concept that every man should give a diamond to the women of his dreams before they got married. They even went so far as to suggest the amount you should spend for this diamond. The number that they came up with was two month’s salary. I guess I should be happy that they didn’t say 12 months!
That campaign has been successful for over seventy years! It’s amazing that one campaign could have that much effect on an industry, or cultural norms for that matter. Triggering an emotional response is a great way to sell products. Sometimes the emotional response can work against a product. General Motors discontinued the Oldsmobile line because everyone had nostalgic memories of their parents driving them around in the old Oldsmobile, but didn’t want to be seen driving one. GM tried to counter this trend for a while with the “this is not your father’s Oldsmobile” campaign, but eventually, the negative connotation of it being “out of fashion” prevailed.
Advertising is a very powerful tool of marketing, and like any powerful tool, it should be used with caution.
Michael S. MacDougall is the President of The Darwin Agency, a Marketing and Advertising agency, with offices in Denver Colorado, and South Florida.
This is a very good video explaining some of the tricks and techniques that advertisers use to get you to buy their products and services.
Don’t Let Your Marketing Get Stale
There’s nothing worse than letting things get stale. Budweiser started a “skunky” beer commercial campaign a few years ago. It was wildly successful, making people think about all that “old” beer in their fridge. People could either start drinking more beer, or throw out the old skunky beer. Either way, Budweiser made money. Personally, I never have that problem because of a continual stream of friends and family that kindly make sure none of my beer lasts long in my fridge.
In the business world, it’s just as important to keep your marketing fresh. When was the last time that you updated your website? One important aspect of search engine optimization as far as Google is concerned, is constantly changing content on your website. If you want people to visit your website, then you have to keep it interesting.
Have you ever watched a tennis pro play tennis? When they hit a great shot, do they stand there and admire it? No, they run back to get ready for what comes next. As a business person, you need to do the same. Have you discovered a successful marketing technique that works for your business? Did you stop all other marketing effort after that successful campaign? Did you rest on your laurels? Don’t do that! You should be constantly testing new techniques and marketing systems. Businesses are never static. They are either growing or shrinking. Which way do you want your business headed?
When it comes to spreading the word around the internet, nothing beats submitting articles. If you’re an expert in your field, you should write and submit articles to the world wide web on a regular basis. There are many sites where you can submit articles free of charge. This does a number of things. One, it marks you as an n expert in your field, and two, it’s a great inexpensive way to increase your presence on the Internet. This process is one aspect of what is also known as search engine optimization.
After you submit the article, you want to make sure that it gets distributed. You want to make sure that you “ping” the article. Pinging is a way of letting interested parties know that you have submitted an article.
A great free service that helps you do this is pingomatic.com. Simply go there, enter your info, and ping away! One note of caution however… Make sure that you enter the url of where the article resides on the Internet, and not where it resides on your computer. For example, I’m writing this blog on my computer where it is saved as a word document. I then transfer the word document to my server where this blog is hosted. I then enter http://thebestmarketingblog.com as the url to ping.
That’s all there is to it! Go forth and ping to your hearts content.
Advertising your business’ products and services is a complicated process. There are lots of strategies that you can and should employ. Some can cost a fortune, while others are very inexpensive and cost effective if done properly.
A current trend in inexpensive advertising is uploading videos to video sharing services, and hope that they go viral. The only way to do that is to make a lasting impression on your viewers with the hope that they will tell their friends about the video. Creating a successful video is more than just creating a funny punch line. This strategy requires detailed planning, and a complete understanding of the product or service. I cannot over emphasize how important this part of the process is… In a worst case scenario, you will become the joke. Remember the most important point when speaking publicly. Know who your audience is, and what they expect.
Viral videos can also cause your business grief, and negative publicity. United Airlines found that out the hard way. When a disgruntled passenger put a music video on YouTube titled “United Breaks Guitars”, it went viral. As of this writing, that video has been viewed 7,254,527 times! That’s a lot of bad publicity.
Here’s an example of a very successful video campaign. This video has been viewed over 11 million times!
Michael S. MacDougall is the President of The Darwin Agency, a full service Marketing Agency and Advertising Agency with locations in South Florida and Denver Colorado, and can be reached at mike@thedarwinagency.com
Keywords – What are they, and why do they need a tail?
A keyword can be a word or a group of words used to target search engine results, and to target advertising. They are used in the title of a document, meta tags, the subject headings, and the body of the text.
Why do we care about keywords? When people search for anything on the internet, they type in a keyword. Google, and other search engines, scour the internet pulling information from every website that they can visit. They then store all this information to have it ready when someone visits their site searching for something. Google pulls what it thinks are the relevant keywords out of all that data, and gives search engine results based on what it thinks is relevant.
As you can imagine, the amount of data that they store is immeasurable. So, if you are selling a product or service and you want a presence on the internet, how can you stand out among the crowd? Does it matter if your company is the five hundredth listing in the results? How many results do you scan through when searching for something on the internet?
Let’s say that your nose was damaged in an auto accident, and you want to have it repaired. If you were searching for a cosmetic surgeon, what keywords would you type in? Let’s say that you type in the keyword “nose job”. The first results page will have a majority of results that talk about the procedure itself, and national organizations that deal with that subject matter. But what if you are the plastic surgeon trying to capture that potential patient’s attention? It would be impossible to get to the first page of results for the keyword “nose job”. And even if you did, do you really care if someone is looking at your website in New York, if your office is in Denver?
That’s where the long tailed keyword comes in. If you searched for the keyword “nose job in Denver”, you’ll now see results that are more relevant to what you are looking for. The longer the tail, the more the relevance. When considering internet marketing, there are lots of “tricks of the trade”, and you should be aware of them. Don’t waste your hard earned dollars or time, chasing something that isn’t worth your investment
Michael S. MacDougall is the President of The Darwin Agency, a full service Marketing Agency and Advertising Agency with locations in South Florida and Denver Colorado, and can be reached at mike@thedarwinagency.com.
Is You Tube considered Social Media Marketing?
As the internet marketing business continues to evolve, many businesses wonder if they should get involved with Social Media. What is Social Media? Is You Tube considered Social Media?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer requires a little more explanation. When people talk about Social Media the first thing that comes to mind is Twitter or Facebook. But what about Youtube? What is the definition of Social Media? One source defines it as:
A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.
If we accept that definition, then Youtube would fall nicely into that category, yet the source above fails to mention it as an example. Why is that? Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of Youtube. The reason that they don’t mention it is because most people don’t think of it as social media, they use it simply as a video sharing service.
OK, so let’s assume that Youtube is a tool for social media marketing. How can you use it as a marketing tool for your business? First, let’s start by saying that auto mechanics doesn’t use every tool in their toolbox for every car that comes into their shop. The same is true of marketing your business. There’s a time and a place for everything. Having said that, let’s assume that you want to promote your business via Youtube.
Did you know that you can create your own channel on YouTube? That’s like having your own TV station. If you create an account, and put a video up on Youtube, you are right up there with NBC. You are now a distributor of video content. If you comment on someone else’s video, and they accept the comment, you receive a back link to your video. That increases the SEO value of your channel. Did you know that when a video goes viral on Youtube, that typically the video is also on the first page of Google results when someone searches for the keywords attached to that video?
As you can see, there’s a lot more to Youtube than just watching videos. In addition to being fun to watch, Youtube can be used as a business building tool.
Michael S. MacDougall is the President of The Darwin Agency, a full service Marketing Agency and Advertising Agency with locations in South Florida and Denver Colorado.
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