In my mind, there are three kinds of entrepreneur: inventors, modelers and marketers. All can be successful, but in my mind, only one kind of entrepreneur is on the surest path to building a business that survives… and thrives.

So what’s the difference between the three? Well, keep in mind that the three terms ‘innovators’, ‘modelers’ and ‘marketers’ are just labels. I think, though, that as you read my definitions, you’ll get the distinction between each entrepreneurial type. And, sure, I’m generalizing - there are probably people who fit into each category in different situations.

(more…)

Interesting blog post by Robert Scoble. He reckons blogging and social media are killing trade shows. Because tech companies are getting the attention - and return on investment - they want from online launches, they are increasingly reluctant to participate in trade shows.

Some companies are reducing their presence (and spend); others are deciding not to go altogether. And Robert Scoble expects the trade show exodus to continue in 2009. And it will probably be a significant exodus, given the economic climate.

(more…)

Early in 2007 Brad Fallon launched FreeIQ.com as the ‘marketplace for ideas.’ It was supposed to be the YouTube for information marketers – where you could, among other things, upload, show and monetize your videos.

It hasn’t been quite two years since the launch of FreeIQ, but if Google Trends for Websites is any indication… the site has never really taken off.

There could be a number of reasons for FreeIQ’s less than stellar performance. Perhaps the service has never lived up to its promise… perhaps there were some technical difficulties that hindered initial uptake… perhaps its selling proposition is unclear…

Who knows? I have no clue, as I’ve never used it. Then again, perhaps that itself IS a clue…

(more…)

Despite indications that online advertising expenditure, including search engine advertising is either down or flattening, AdGooroo reports that first page advertising activity on all three major search engines was up sharply during the first two months of the fourth quarter of 2008.

Not only was first page spending up during this period, but the growth in first-page advertisers was substantially higher than that in the fourth quarter of 2007. Here are the growth percentages:

AdGooroo points out that while advertiser counts are higher on all three search engines, Google’s 55 percent increase is beyond what can be expected from seasonality alone. It attributes the remaining increase to Google expanding its ad coverage.

Meanwhile, AdGooroo estimates that Microsoft has increased its advertiser share from 11.5 percent in Q3 to about 15.8 percent in Q4 (a 37 percent increase). This brings Microsoft much closer to Yahoo in terms of being the preferred search engine channel for search engine marketers. Currently, Yahoo has a 22.1 percent share, while Google has an 80.3 percent share.

Source: AdGooroo, “AdGooroo Mid-Quarter Search Engine Update - Q408″, AdGooroo, December 4, 2008

Two California based companies, Adisn and Tumri seem to have captured the imagination of mainstream advertisers with their technologies to dynamically test and improve ad performance.

As reported by The New York Times, the companies’ technologies not only use behavioral, contextual or demographic targeting to work out who is looking at an ad, but also dynamically change elements of the ad to improve click-throughs, sales and other desired responses.

In other words, Adisn and Tumri have created technologies to automate the processes of (a) understanding the target audience and (b) tracking, testing and improving ads to elicit the desired response from that target audience.

Adisn’s approach is to build a database of related words in order to assess the content of a website based on the words on its pages. Adisn then buys space on a website and, in real-time, uses its ‘understanding’ of that website to display the most appropriate ad – complete with text, images and colors, etc.

Tumri, on the other hand, doesn’t buy ad space. It creates an ad template, then uses whatever targeting approach its clients are already using – behavioral, contextual or demographic, etc - to accordingly assemble an ad in real time.

In both cases, the elements used in an ad – the headline, color scheme, images, etc – are combined on the fly. Then, as the response to the ad is measured, further combinations are tested in order to improve the performance of the ad.

Real-time tracking, testing and improving is like a dream come true for direct response advertisers. But, as The New York Times reports, it poses a big challenge to the way traditional ad agency creatives approach their craft.

Such creatives – and I speak from experience, having begun my career as a copywriter for a mainstream ad agency – tend to create ads on a more holistic basis. Indeed, most aim to create ONE ad based on ONE BIG IDEA i.e. the one execution they believe will have the optimum impact.

Traditional ad creatives tend not to consider ads in terms of their individual parts i.e. that one color could or should be exchanged for another, or that one headline could be exchanged for another, or that one image could be exchanged for another.

And they have a point. The risk of approaching and tweaking an ad on a piecemeal basis is that you fail to take into account how each piece works together to generate an overall effect.

As direct response marketers who manually change and test things have found, however, I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem.

There’s still room for good old fashioned common sense – you can still avoid inappropriate combinations e.g. white text on a white background. Moreover, the results of each iteration of a given ad will provide plenty of feedback. And testing, tracking and improving sure beats not having a clue about what improves results!

Let’s face it, the days of the one ideal ad… the one big idea… and creating ads without tracking their performance… are numbered.

Source: Stephanie Clifford, “Web Marketing That Hopes to Learn What Attracts a Click,” The New York Times, December 3, 2008

One of the ideas that Eben Pagan (Internet marketing star and founder of the infamous DoubleYourDating.com franchise) espouses is the idea of giving customers something of immense value and ask for relatively little in return.

I like to think of this as providing customers with a big return on their investment (ROI). And the benefit of doing so is that it keeps them coming back for more, which in turns yields a big ROI for you.

This idea covers everything from providing customers with a lot of stuff for free… to only charging a fraction of what something is worth to them.

Now let’s clarify something - none of this means that you should charge ‘low’ prices or rip yourself off. What it means is that what you ask for in terms of dollars is actually very low compared to what the customer gets out of the product or service you offer them.

In other words, you can charge whatever you want. You can charge a ‘high’ price… as long as it’s still very low compared to the value of the product or service to the customer.

And the benefit of wowing the customer so much that they think the price you’re charging is ludicrously low?

Well, they become more likely to jump on your offer for one thing. And the law of reciprocity also kicks in: they feel so privileged that they are much more likely to commit to you and buy from you again.

And there are other major advantages too.

I should also add that giving your customers what they perceive to be of immense value may actually cost you very little. For example, it costs very little for a coffee shop owner to give a customer a free cup of coffee on their birthday. Yet, to the customer, it’s a gesture worth much more than the cost of the coffee. A gesture that is likely to attract them back to the coffee shop again and again.

According to some, email marketing is already dead…

Hmmm, tell that to direct response marketing behemoth Agora, Inc. I have it on good authority that Agora is on track to do $400 million in sales this year, and guess what constitutes a major part of its marketing? That’s right: email marketing.

Of course there’s a strong argument that email marketing effectiveness will decline over the coming years and decades. Especially, as the mobile/texting generation grows up.

For now, however, marketers still point to email marketing as one of the most cost-effective online marketing methods. A global survey of online retailers conducted in July and August 2008 by E-Consultancy and R.O.EYE found that most marketers regarded email as second only to paid search when it came to driving high volume.

Even though the number of online retailers surveyed was relatively small - just 241 - eMarketer says the results mirror those of other research. For instance, nearly 25 percent of search engine advertisers worldwide surveyed in January 2008 by Radar Research for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) said e-mail marketing yielded the best ROI of any tactic.

Bottom line: email marketing still works. And works well. Use it.

Source: eMarketer, “Consumers Opening Fewer Emails”, eMarketer, November 14, 2008

Some analysts and research firms - eMarketer being a notable inclusion - seem to think that online advertising will keep on rising, albeit at a slower rate, over the coming year.

But in light of the current economic downturn, Nick Denton, founder of leading blog network, Gawker Media, suggests that online advertising may actually decline - and decline sharply - in 2009.

When someone with a vested interest in talking UP online advertising is so bearish… it’s worth taking note. Nick indicates that those who claim that Internet advertising is largely immune to the recession because it’s more ‘measurable’ are just kidding themselves.

Says Nick:

“The sector’s maturity also means that its underlying growth is more sluggish than it was in the late 1990s. In 2001, internet advertising swung to a 13% decline from 78% growth the previous year; this time the sector starts from a growth rate of 27%; I would hate to see what a swing as violent as the dotcom burst would look like.

As for the measurability of internet media: sure, marketers and their agencies can track engagement and clicks in great detail online; but it’s still only television advertising that can demonstrate a correlation between spending and a boost to a marketer’s sales.”

Source: Nick Denton, “Nick Denton: Media Sleepwalking Into Extinction”, Silicon Alley Insider, November 12, 2008, Silicon Alley Insider

Israeli startup company, EyeView, has raised anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million in seed funding to build technology it says will increase website conversion rates.

The big idea? Displaying short Flash tutorials - screencasts, video guides, or any rich media presentation - with a call to action at the end.

Presumably EyeView aims to make it easy for marketers to put together such tutorials, but if that’s the big idea… I don’t get it.

Technology is nice. Flash videos are nice. But a nice Flash video is NOT a guarantee of higher conversions! What will increase conversions is NOT having a Flash tutorial per se. Rather, it’s offering visitors something of value in return for which they are willing to take a specific action.

Will someone tell me what I am missing here? According to TechCrunch, EyeView says it’s able to improve conversion rates for internal website marketing campaigns by as much as 20 percent. Customers already trying out EyeView’s technology include Yahoo, eBay, HP, and Nokia.

Again, I ask: is it the technology… or is it the value inherent in the Flash presentation… that is the cause of the higher conversion rates? Given that it’s already possible to put together Flash and other rich media presentations, I have to wonder if the real benefit of EyeView’s solution is that it makes it EASIER to create Flash tutorials, rather than its ability to increase conversion rates.

Source: Erick Schonfeld, “EyeView Raises Seed Round For Flash Tutorials That Convert”, TechCrunch, November 17, 2008

Zedo has released a new, self-service platform that allows marketers to create their own social networking ads.

Essentially, Zedo will allow marketers to purchase ad templates, including fully skinnable interfaces, which can be modified to suit different social networks. Marketers can purchase text ads, image ads or create unique flash-based ads using a drag and drop tool.

In addition, marketers can use Zedo’s sequencing tool to choose the sequence of ads seen by consumers. There is also an an ad hoc reporting system to enable marketers to view information from all campaigns running on all relevant networks.

Source: Kristina Knight, “New platform enables self-serve social ads”, BizReport, November 10, 2008