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The presidential election now upon us offers an interesting contrast in marketing approaches. One candidate is all about brand, image, and soaring rhetoric that appeals to the heart. The other is (significantly) less flashy but appeals to our more practical side. He’s the candidate of rational, “value” buyers who carefully consider the offerings then choose the one that offers the greatest benefit for the lowest price—an appeal to the brain.

From a product standpoint, Obama is like the iPod. Never mind that there are lots of MP3 players that offer matching or even superior functionality, at a lower price, without the limitation of compatibility only with a closed network—the iPod is cool! So much so that “iPod” has become to “MP3 player” what “Kleenex” is to “tissue.”

McCain on the other hand is the “off-brand” that peels buyers away from the big name through an appeal to value. A classic example is Dell Computer. When the company first got started, IBM was the premier, established brand in PCs. But Dell eventually wiped them out of the market with a better product, lower price, and direct appeal that bypassed traditional channels.

There’s no question that McCain represents the better “value” in this election: lower taxes, smaller government, free trade, free market healthcare reform, and on foreign policy experience…no comparison. But on brand, Obama kicks. He’s the candidate of hope and change, of mega-crowds, a uniter-not-a-divider (wait, wasn’t that…ah, never mind). McCain, in contrast, appears to many people that he really is your father’s Oldsmobile. Or worse, your grandfather’s. And his choice of a running mate who, fairly or not, comes off as not exactly Mensa material has arguably hurt McCain more than Obama’s past connections have impacted his image.

Sometime late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning (barring any hanging chads), we’ll know: are the majority of us brand buyers or value shoppers?

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Originally posted here:
McCain, Obama, and Marketing Part 2: Brand vs. Value

In The Disconnect in PPC vs. SEO Spending, Rand Fishkin demonstrates that “SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets,” then asks: “Why does paid search earn so many more marketing dollars?”

No doubt the comments to Rand’s post will reveal many reasons for this differential, but here are three that spring immediately to mind:

1. The perception that people click on natural search results when they are seeking information, but on sponsored search ads when they are ready to buy. This presumption certainly justifies proportionately greater spending if it’s valid. I suspect that just the opposite may in fact be the case, but don’t have sufficient data to back that up.

2. The “media cost” is inherent in PPC. Companies can spend very similar amounts for SEO activities and SEM program management–in fact, they can even spend more on the former than the latter–yet still have much larger budgets for PPC than for SEO. That’s simply because PPC includes a “media cost” of paying for the sponsored search clicks from Google, Yahoo, MSN, or another search engine.

3. PPC is applicable to a broader set of search terms. Some terms (most commonly one- to three-word search phrases) are simply very, very difficult to SEO for, either because they are highly competitive, very common, or ambiguous. With SEO, you can spend a lot of money to try to rank well for these terms yet still end up with disappointing results. With SEM, you can guarantee your site will appear, then control total costs through day-parting and geo-targeting.

It’s also very difficult to show up well in the natural search results for a competitor’s brand name. PPC not only gives you a spot on page one for these phrases, it lets you customize the message (e.g., “consider the more cost-effective alternative”).

The bottom line is that SEO is both more effective and less expensive than PPC, which makes it a no-brainer for any website.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Continued here:
Why PPC Will Always Cost More Than SEO

LinkedIn yesterday announced a new service that enables market researchers and investors to conduct market intelligence research using LinkedIn’s network of over 30 million professionals worldwide, approximately half of whom are IT and business decision makers.The news was quickly picked up by numerous bloggers including Doug Caverly, Bill Holmes and Layne Salter (an indication of how adept the PR folks at LinkedIn are with interactive PR).

Essentially, companys that want to conduct market research among difficult-to-reach B2B and IT decision makers will now be able to slice and dice profiles of LinkedIn’s large member base to reach groups with very specific attributes. From the participant side, “LinkedIn members who participate in a survey can choose from a variety of rewards including gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Best Buy, or make a donation to charities.”

This is all good—vendors can get valuable feedback from the right sample groups based on accurate LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn gets another revenue stream, and participants get token rewards. But it seems to me there may be an opportunity missed here.

People join social networks for lots of reasons, but I’ve never of anyone joining for the purpose of collecting $10 gift cards or Starbucks coffee coupons. Among the top reasons people join are to get recognition and to form new relationships. Bloggers often join, for example, in order to both drive more traffic to their blogs and to connect with like-minded readers and other bloggers.

So…any company can spend some money on gift cards and use the new LinkedIn offering to collect market research data. But the really smart ones will find a way to tap the motivations of LinkedIn members and create a mutually benefical social experience that provides not just data, but understanding.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
LinkedIn B2B Surveys - Will They be Social?

MarketingSherpa just published a short article, Banner Ad Size and Click Rate: Bigger a Bit Better, But It’s Clicks that Count, that includes this chart:

Three observations stand out:

1) The data haven’t changed much since last year, when it was reported here that “The average CTR for banner ads is roughly 0.25%, with a reported range of 0.17% to 0.40%.”

2) Click-through rates are pathetic regardless of ad size, so don’t use CTR as the primary metric for evaluating banner advertising. In the words of MarketingSherpa, “Online ads are branding tools. Direct clicks are simply a happy byproduct.” Banner advertising is most commonly sold on a CPM basis (and with CTR’s like that, it’s no wonder). CPMs on B2B publisher sites typically range anywhere from $30 t0 $120, meaning that a banner advertiser is paying $15-$60 per click based on the average CTR of 0.21%.

3) The best response rates come from 300×250 ads, which are typically positioned in the top right corner of a web page—no suprise, as that is generally considered the most prime real estate on any web page. Both the 728×90 and 468×60 horizontal banners are typically used at the top of a web page, but notice the significant discrepancy in CTR; when buying real estate at the top of a page, size clearly matters. The remaining ad sizes shown in the chart are skyscraper ads, most commonly positioned on the right and left sides of page content well below the top of page, often below the fold. Interestingly, size doesn’t seem to matter much on skyscrapers.

Conversion rates for B2B ads continue to average about 2.8%. That means, on average, you’d need 17,000 impressions to generate one lead—at an average cost of $1,258! So again: banner ads are branding, not revenue or lead generation. They may very well have a role to play in your marketing mix, but it’s important to understand what that role is.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Go here to read the rest:
Average CTR for Banner Ads - New Data

Note: this is the first of two guest-posts from customer loyalty expert Nisha Prasad at IQPC. Read on to find out how you can get special pricing for IPQC’s upcoming customer engagement and loyalty event.

You’re a marketing star. You have more creativity than Jeff Koons, your plans are impeccable and your campaigns are the stuff of marketing Hall of Fame.

But are you hitting the mark where it counts? That is, are you engaging and retaining your customers, as well as marketing to them?

We all know the positive business impact of keeping our customers loyal but its often difficult to implement and execute a customer-oriented marketing plan that a) wins C Level Support b) is compatible with current business processes and c) uses financial resources wisely.

IQPC has put together the Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit (November 17-19, 2008, Hilton Miami, FL) to address these real marketing issues. The two-day conference brings together successful business oriented leaders to share their customer strategies and secrets. No fluff, no mirrors and lights, just straightforward answers and opportunity to benchmark in an open, engaging format. It may be the most valuable conference you attend this year.

Some of the most relevant topics in customer engagement and loyalty include:

• Sales and Marketing Integration for Customer Retention and Loyalty
• Analyzing Customer Feedback
• Translating Loyalty into Financial Impact
• Generating Word of Mouth
• Using Technology and analytics and finding out which is best for you
• Changing Employee Behavior to enhance customer engagement

In addition to the ready-to-use takeaway strategies, the event provides great networking opportunities to discuss and share your own successes and challenges with peers. Zappos, Best Buy, Borders, Mastercard Worldwide, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Telllabs, Canada Post, Abbott Labs, and Charles Schwab will also be speaking and sharing their customer expertise.

Go on over, check out the website at www.iqpc.com/us/CustomerLoyalty.

Finally, a conference for marketers that addresses the important issues head on: customers and business impact.

p.s. And because you’re reading this blog, you automatically get a perk (your boss will love that!): 2-for-1 conference pricing when you mention code: IUS_WMC_001. Great price, great speakers, great topics, great networking, great takeaways—the Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit is for you.

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Original post:
Where Savvy Marketers Go to Become Savvier