Posts Tagged ‘business marketing’
Marketing on a Budget
The recent recession and the slowing job market have many people worried enough to think about making money from home. Lots of people find out for themselves that they can no longer rely on companies to give them jobs and that they must start a business making money independently. This is why starting a home business or a small business has become so popular. There are so many work from home ideas for people to consider as well as work at home reviews to help them pick the most appropriate businesses to start.
For a small business, the startup costs can be too much to afford. There are many things you have to do when starting a business such as advertising, marketing, branding, stocking up inventory and the list goes on. While a big company often has a large advertising and marketing budget, a small business often does not. If you have already chosen what kind of business you are starting, you may want to consider getting the words out about your business by networking with others. You can advertise your products or services with little cost by word of mouth. You can tell your family members and friends and ask them to tell anyone they know about your products or services. By attending events and network with other professionals such as at chamber of commerce meetings, you will meet and connect with people who might want your products or services.
Brand name is also important. A brand is a name or trademark connected with a product or producer. Brands have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy. If you are marketing a brand name product, then people will already have seen your product and it will not be hard to market it to the right group of people. If you have invented something then you might want to protect your proprietary rights through trademark registration. For a business owner to be successful, he or she will need to put in a lot of efforts into the business.
Grow with fridge magnets…
In a time short world we’re always looking for just the right fast fix of relevant information; just in front of us for when we need it. In this scenario a marriage of almost perfect proportions was made.
The problem solvers required their message in client’s faces and clients needed easy access to a fast fix for their problems – the fridge magnets were providing those solutions.
Arrive the fridge magnet – an easily imprintable medium to get images on the family fridge. First made in the 1970’s the fridge magnet has grown ever more to take a sacred advertising space on the family fridge. Plumbers, electricians, real estate salesman, vets, doctors, local politicians and many more have come to rely on the humble fridge magnets power to infiltrate the family home.
The communications force of a humble fridge magnet relies in the fact that an average fridge is visited – read viewed – some 17 times a day. That’s a lot of views.
A fridge magnet marketing card takes the same rationale, but with a larger imprint area. They have magnet only over a small section of the back of a printed card. For a size, the fridge magnet marketing card is cheaper for its initial outlay and in its distribution costs. Both pluses, if you’re not looking for “big” magnet pulling power.
These are best suited to promotional products like calendars and large advertising messages too big for say a business card sized magnet.
Another adaptation of the fridge magnet has been the manufacture of a thicker material suitable for car magnets with the same ease of movement and positioning wherever you want on a car. These car magnets are an easy means to place all forms of communications over a car – transforming the vehicle into a mobile billboard.
A new idea is to invite passers-by your car, pick a fridge magnet off the car; combining the company’s advertising and means of contact via the fridge magnet. It’s a fresh way to advertise from the combined use of car and fridge magnets.
Myspace And Online Video Ads
The Internet has developed no end in the last ten years where seeing more and more video presenters on websites today. From being a just an information-sharing network it has become a real living hub used to buy and sell things, create friendships. This growth in Internet use and the advances in technology have begun to challenge the media industry, TV can now be viewed anytime, and any place online, the same with films and music. This has obviously added to piracy issues, but also opened up a whole new global market, which has caught the interest of advertisers.
Online marketing is worth big money, for a few key reasons:
TV adverts are only shown between programmes, whereas Internet adverts and banners are on screen nearly all the time. Giving websites much more coverage.
*The amount of people that can be reached is incredible. For example last year google had 1,118,000,000 view their advert that’s over 18 times the population of the UK.
*Targeting the right market is fairly easy, working out the markets interests and then placing adverts on the main sites of these interests can quickly aim the information straight into the segment the advertiser wants to reach.
Some sites such as myspace and facbook know that their users visit the site almost everyday to check their messages or comments and they know this regular traffic is worth a lot of money. Linking between sites is a technique less well known websites can use to gain traffic, by making a post on for example myspace which includes the web address to their site, owners can guide a section of myspace’s users towards their website and therefore boost their own traffic.
Some website owners have even used internet user’s mistakes to gain traffic. For example, each country has assigned their web domains, the UK has .co.uk, America .com and France .fr. Cameroon in Africa has .cm and one entrepreneur came across a brilliant and highly profitable idea. He bought up hundreds of domains ending in .cm that sounded similar to their .com equivalents. By using user mistakes to gain traffic Kevin Ham made well over 2 million dollars!
Company owners are also starting to realise that text based websites don’t hold their audience interests for as long as needed. Website creators are attempting to combine website video production and website to create new, more interesting sites that not only entertain but more importantly sell. These website tour guides can greet site guests, show them round and help a company communicate their brand image and intentions. Not only this, but tests have proved that people stay longer on sites that feature a video tour guide rather than just text and user retention is highly important to potential advertisers.
As you can see the world of online sales and advertising is fast moving and constantly changing. The question is where will it go next and if you know then it’s definitely time to invest.
Why Online Video Is The New Media
The use of video on websites has many positive effects on people who become interactive with the website. Websites that use website video production include, YouTube, Face Book, MySpace, E4, 4od etc. the way in which the video’s connect with the audiences are on many levels as the viewers can have a visual on things that they properly wouldn’t bother to read about.
The internet offers many sources of information, this information is shown in many different ways such as text based, video based, picture based etc.
With the internet becoming very popular and people relying on information on the internet, audiences will look for a specific type of information that they will be able to understand and connect with, the most popular source of information is video based.
When people are given the chance to either read or watch something giving out information on the internet, people are more likely to prefer to watch a web presenter. Todays browsers are of the TV era and they are simply more conditioned to watch than read.
Its so easy now through online paid ads to reach your target audience.
Another very successful way to advertise a product is to use a presenter to encourage people, this can be evidenced on websites such as homepages to internet services i.e. SKY, MSN etc. on these particular pages I found a detailed advertisement advertising “weight loss products” within this advertisement a woman is shown before and after in a bikini, with her discussing how the product worked for her and giving people details of how to use the product. By being able to see and hear positive feedback about a certain product convinces people to believe in the product.
Audiences need information to be laid out for them in the ways that they will want to watch it, if the information they are looking for is not set out in a specific way (Text, Video’s etc) they will immediately leave the website and look else where.
Certain websites only give out specific ways of presenting information, some are completely text based, video based or they could be a mixture of both.
Keeping your website interesting with video content will ensure visitors are kept more interested and stay on the site longer.
YouTube is a website that offers millions of video’s that can be easily found in the search engine, when logging into You tube it immediately gives you things that you may like to watch on the basis of videos you have already viewed. Video sharing sites track user activity and suggest other videos that may interest them. You tube is a very reliable website to find information by video.
The internet overall generates information in many ways. As people rely on the internet for information, it is very important that the popular and not so popular websites keep up to date with how information should be presented to audiences as this will have a huge impact on the views that the website receive.
Online Video Advertising On Top Video Sharing Sites
Our modern society has been gradually gaining technological advances since the idea behind an information super highway was put into working practice. As a result of this, the web has become somewhat of a source for ‘accurate’ information that many have now become fully dependant on as a prioritised source.
The internet has improved dramatically over the last decade and is beginning to gather more audience attention than the once popular programming broadcasts from television networks The internet has attracted more audience recognition through the use of a larger variety of entertaining mediums concerning computer graphics and video.
Video usage is one of the latest phenomenon’s, with hosting slowly becoming an essential feature for most websites in recent times. This has increased with the rise in popularity of such video hosts as YouTube.
Many find website video production to be a type of visual aid, which proves beneficial more so for the current generations of pre-teens and young adults who, as a result of certain technological distractions, have less of an appreciation for the written word and a low maintenance of a decent attention span for long periods of time.
Companies are using video presenter in different ways depending on the target market and product or service being advertised/offered. Those offering advice on things such an editing techniques in programmes like Final Cut Pro often use videos to directly show users which buttons to press/tools to use, and how certain methods should be carried out. Audience members who may learn in this way find this beneficial as it allows them to use practical information rather than just written paragraphs.
Video hosting websites like YouTube serve as a good communication method, and can also give rise to fame for those who get noticed by well-known production companies; for example, web presenters Brooke Brodack posted comedic music videos as a hobby, only to be seen by Carson Daly of MTV. She now generates cash for her unique online video stylings.
With the advances, videos have now begun to become interactive, allowing viewers to select links and find yet more information than just what the video itself aims to supply.
Banners on web pages frequently use this method for advertising, allowing users to scroll over the area to reveal a larger section containing either an interactive feature or video corresponding to the small amount of information given on the banner initially.
This rise in video hosting has taken attention away from television, which was once the only technological deviation to supply videos of a high quality to a variety of audiences on a large scale.
Many terrestrial channels have already begun seeking opportunities to move their programming online, and resources such as BBC iPlayer and 4oD have now increased in content capacity.
Inevitably as technology increases, so too will the amount of new features on the World Wide Web, including the advance of video formulation, offering possibilities for more creative and inventive idea yet to be approved.
Who should you trust with your business’s marketing.
I have worked in the marketing profession for more than 30 years, and I’ve seen basically every set of ups and downs you can imagine. During that time, I worked a a slew of different positions in Florida, as well as up north in New York, and I have done most anything you can think of in this profession. Please check out my bio page for some more information about me.
I decided that as soon as I opened my own marketing firm in 2001, it would be unlike 95% of the other advertising, public relations, and/or marketing firms you’ll run across. By that I mean the main focus of my business is specializing in out-of-the-box marketing.
Most business owners don’t realize just how many ways companies can market their businesses other than simple traditional marketing, such as TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines, Trade Publications or anything else along those lines. When you do advertise in the more traditional mediums, there are many, many things you can do to stand out from the crouwd. Actually the best thing to do is find a venue where your competition is not advertising and put your money into that particular medium rather than joining the crowd, and we have the experience to help you do just that. With experience in everything from News Releases to Writing Proposals we know how to get your business off the ground.
That tip is part of what I do in consulting services to businesses, large and small, to help them create greater public awareness, build an even stronger, positive image than they may already have with the community and/or in their industry, and provide (and help them implement) strategies to enhance their bottom lines. But don’t take my word for it. Take a gander at what some of our satisfied customers have to say about our service. Feel free to read the free articles that I provide on my website; they’ll help you get started on your way to building your own business. Then decide for yourself.
Even though a substantial part of my business is copywriting and consulting, make sure to check my website to see the list of services that I offer in addition to. You’ll find more than 20 types of advertising, PR, and marketing initiatives that will help your business expand its catalogue of clients.
Please come back to my Website often…because it is always changing. In the next few months, we’ll be adding additional features to our website, which will be designed to help you improve your business through out-of-the-box- marketing strategies that will give your business the competitive edge you need. Please stop by my website’s contact page to see how to contact me. Your best bet is to reach me by e-mail. Please look around and see if I have any options you might like.
Thanks for visiting Dale W. Hutchings, APR, PR, MARKETING & ADVERTISING…a business built on creative copywriting, outstanding marketing consulting services…and more. Be sure to give me a call, or shoot me an email if you have any questions about Employee Newsletters in the Tampa Bay Area.
Why Website Visitors Want More Than Just Text
Websites use active animation on there homepages to simply keep people interested, this can prove very positive and will hold the attention of the viewer through interactivity. Most sites now days use some kind of interactivity. The internet was created to house all the information in the world and with more being added every day searching for one thing among this massive library can be a very boring and long process so things like banners and hosts are used.
If a site was to have huge blocks of text you would quickly loose interest, but if say a virtual presenter pops up when you log on you are more in cline to pay attention, especially if online presenters is representing the site; for example a cosmetic company could use a ‘perfect’ woman to lure viewers in to thinking they could also look like this, this could count as a demonstration. Internet based companies like ‘Skype’ and ‘MSN’ use virtual presenters, they accompany you through installing there software on to your system.
It doesn’t have to be as sophisticated as a video presenter it can be banners at the sides, above or below. These while faster can be just as effective if used in the right way; for example on ‘Gametrailers.com’ they use banners to advertise online games or up and coming releases. If you were to use the banner on say a sport website.com’ they wouldn’t be reaching the target audience making them useless.
Social networking sites like Face book and MySpace use both use banners and presenters to target their audience. On Face Book there are usually ads all over the page, advertising things like online games or ‘Trace your family tree’. The growing popularity in interactivity among online companies is leading to more advertises using the wed instead of TV, this is increasing the audience for the net thus increasing revenue, while decreasing the audience for TV.