Advertising in an Adversary World

As a business owner, you have a good relationship with advertising. For your business, advertising is a key way to get new customers interested in the services you have to sell. The annoyances you deal with are substantial, but they are all aimed towards a worthwhile goal: building your business.

Your potential customers have a different relationship. To them, advertising can be an annoyance. Sure it can give them the answer they need just when they need it, but most of the time advertising gets in the way of whatever they were doing when the ad was noticed.

Plenty of new software has been developed to help the customer avoid advertising. TiVo and ReplayTV were initially created to avoid television commercials. In all, there are new roadblocks being built every day that will make advertising your messages more difficult.

And that's why you need to know what works. AdSymetrix has been developed specifically to give you the information you need to make the best decisions for your advertising plans. Simply Tag Your Ad and watch as AdSymetrix tracks and monitor the responses. You'll know where your ads work, and where you're money and time is being wasted.

Sign up now and start saving money on your next advertising campaign.

Word of Mouth

A fever is hitting the Internet this week, all of it focused around Apple's iPhone debut. One of the interesting thing about the amazing reach of this product's launch has been the relatively small amount of effort that Apple's placed in distributing information. From all corners, interested people are doing the heavily lifting for Apple and spreading the word of the new product.

In part, this is due to the perfect storm of the right product coming at just the right time. But the other part has to do with the reputation that Apple's been able to build about itself and its products. And because of that, people are talking.

This kind of word of mouth marketing can be exceptionally helpful. But the key is making sure that the marketing extension remains within your brand. Apple has spent the last few years coming up with ways to make people believe that they are the best company to solve the problem of portable music, that they have the easiest technology for connecting to other people and the Internet and that their products are the prettiest on the market. They could not have released an iPhone ten years ago. It took all this time to straighten out the company and the way they talked to people to get the world ready for Apple to release a product that would get this kind of response.

It is entirely because Apple's made so many people so happy that they've got so many happy people talking about their products.

Getting people talking about your business is a great way to get new customers. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association or WOMMA is a good place to start learning.

In the end you'll have people talking about your business. And AdSymetrix can lend a hand. Track and monitor the responses to referrals with AdSymetrix and learn how your customers are responding to your business.

AdSymetrix is getting ready to launch a new version of our application and website soon. Sign up for our beta now.

Where Is Everyone?

The good folks at Marketing Charts bring to our attention today a new report that's been released that purports to explain what types of media your potential customers are checking out during the day. The results break down as you'd probably expect, TV and Radio are big winners, Online services are gaining quickly and Newspapers are still holding a (shrinking) audience.

The more interesting bit of information was the relative attention paid to each of these media. While people are happy to have the Television or Radio on in the background, people who use the Internet and other online services pay more attention to not only the content they're looking at but the ads as well. This means, of course, that ads online could be more persuasive in the eyes of potential customers than ads in other media - if only because online people are actually paying attention.

The best way, of course, to determine what kinds of ads work for you is to use AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ad and watch as AdSymetrix tracks and monitors your responses. It's the easiest way to know how people are finding you, and how you can sell to them.

When You Make Your Own Ads

We've spent a lot of time over here talking about the ways that mass market publications are trying to react to losing their mass market audiences, but we haven't had much to say about how you can go from yelling in a crowded room to talking face to face.

While AdSymetrix has been designed to help you make better advertising purchasing decisions, it's also been designed to help you make better use of personal connections.

One way that this can work is through the use of fliers, handbills or business cards. AdSymetrix gives you the tools you need to keep track of the responses you get from any of these more personal ways of connecting with potential customers.

Next time you place a print order, Tag Your Ad and watch as AdSymetrix tracks and monitors the responses. You'll be able to see which business cards are finding the most new customers, what fliers are attracting the most attention and what new ways of connecting with customers are working for your business.

When You Can't Interrupt Them, Join Them

Nissan is looking at a new way to integrate their marketing message into entertainment, placing their products inside video games. Starting with the launch of the new Forza Motorsport 2 game for XBox, people who buy the game at Circuit City, Best Buy or Game Spot will be able to get a free set of add-ons that allow them to download a tricked out Nissan Sentra into the game.

These kinds of extras again show how advertisers are desperate to get the attention of an audience that may possibly become interested enough to buy their products. The inclusion of marketer-sponsored areas within video games is a logical extension of product placement, albeit one that has some built in measurements.

Placing your products inside someone else's entertainment can be risky. What happens if the car you download always loses, or the game becomes less fun because of your product. The question that has yet to be answered is whether this kind of marketing brings new customers into Nissan dealerships, or whether it's just another game to be played.

When you're looking to do something new with your advertising, bring AdSymetrix along for the ride. AdSymetrix has been developed to give you the information that lets you make better marketing decisions. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. Know what works and what is just wasting your money.

Two More Examples of the Growing Trend

Today, two stories jump out that show just how much the world of mass media and advertising is changing.

The first, from Wired goes behind the velvet rope and lets you in on the ways that advertising agencies think they can grab on to the MySpace generation, by hiring them. The agencies hope that by grabbing people who use the technology, they'll suddenly be ab;e to better exploit the technology for their clients. While that may be t a sound strategy for learning about a new media, it's not a cure for the problems that they'll face trying to justify their $400/hour jobs.

The other story comes to us via News.com and the New York Times. It seems that now, as audience shares have continued to slip, newspapers are finding that they have to
look at the web as their primary outlet for publishing.

This means that the future of publishing is online, and that means that the future of advertising is online.

To better understand how these futures can help market your business, you should give give AdSymetrix a try. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your
responses. Know what works and what doesn't and make the best marketing decisions for your business.

The Oncoming Rush of Online Advertising

With Yahoo replacing its CEO today, there's lots of talk about the ways that company makes money.

Arguably, the most important part of Yahoo's business plan is the way that it utilizes online advertising to make their bucks.

Today's Wall Street Journal looks at ways that marketers are using online advertising to hit just the target audiences they want and a fraction of the cost. The shift is important.

Moving from traditional advertising vehicles to more innovative ones allows for greater targeting and more flexible creative messaging. As technology advances, say with a certain pocket phone / computer, the ability to reach people using online means grows far larger than your ability to touch them using traditional mass media. Targeting geographically as well as demographically and psychographically will not only be necessary but made easier by the opportunities presented by online advertising.

And the best way to know what works is to use AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. Finally you'll know what works and how to make the best buying decisions for your advertising budget.

Sign up now, it's free

The End of Advertising As We Know It!

OK, so maybe things aren't quite as dreary as the headline says, but as more and more people splinter away from mass-market entertainment advertisers are looking at new ways to get prospective customers' attention.

The Washington Post front's today with a story about how the 30-Second Commercial may not be long for this world. With the advent of TiVo's and other time-shifting devices, not only do audiences no longer need to keep their ears open during bathroom/snack breaks while the commercials are on, but they can pause and fast-forward and miss the messages entirely. Now, advertisers are finding that the highly targeted advertising markets opened by online advertising are showing more potential for generating new business than the shotgun approach that mass-market marketing ever offered.

So without a need for a two and two break and with tighter targeting of audience desires, marketers may soon see the day when viral video surpasses television commercials.

Of course, the best way for you to know when you need to pull the plug on any of your advertising is with the help of AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses, giving you the information you need to make advertising decisions that not only save you money, but generate new business.

AdSymetrix, sign up now, it's free.

Interesting Ideas that Sometimes Work

There's a weblog out there called 2wenty 4our that showcases interesting and creative advertising campaigns from around the world.

Leafing through the entries you see a lot of edgy stuff, but more generally you see ads that have been made to get attention. They may not always make sense, but the ideas shown in these ads are at least interesting.

The important thing to remember is that most of the very creative concepts shown here are made for very particular audiences and aren't shown to the public. When you have millions to spend on advertising, it's easier to experiment.

Some experiments work better than others. The model walking around with her skirt held up by balloons to showcase Braun's hair removal system increased traffic 25%, but the Cepacol ad just seems creepy.

When it's your business, you don't want to just throw noodles at the wall and wait for things to stick, you want to know that the messages and media you're using are working for you.

That's where AdSymetrix comes in. Simply Tag Your Ad and we'll track and monitor the responses - giving you the real information you'll need to make the best decisions for spending your advertising budget.

Because knowing is better than hoping.

When Bad News Turns Into Good Advertising

Today, Kellogg's announced that it would either make kid's cereal healthier, or drop its ads. What's it mean?

Well, after years of complaints about the sugary nature of cereal one of the largest makers of that cereal has acquiesced and admitted that the stuff they were selling, and the way they were selling it was not-as-healthy as their marketing would have you expect. That's big. It is a giant step for a company reliant on the misdirection afforded by great advertising to sell their sweetened and toasted corn to a nation of excited children. Kellogg's is saying that their detractors have a point. That their cereal has been marketed in a way that makes kids (and their parents) feel that the food healthier than it is.

But the amazing part of this story isn't that Kellogg has been doing something wrong, it's that they're now going to do something right.

They've been able to flip the script and make their current move to make healthier food and better ads seem noble. They aren't the bad guys looking to surreptitiously make your children less healthy, they're the good guys who realized that something wasn't right and dag-gum-it they're going to make good by their customers. For the children, y'know.

The lesson to be learned is that every motion your company makes has the opportunity to shape the way people think about you. What you do and how you talk about yourself plays into the feelings that your customers (and potential customers) get when they think about doing business with you.

And AdSymetrix can help. Whenever you mention your company, place an ad or hand out a business card, AdSymetrix can show you just how those encounters matter to your bottom line. Simply tag your ad, or in this case, Press Release, and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses.

When to trust, and not to trust an online review

Salon has a great article today that talks about the reliability of online review websites. Or more specifically, the un-reliability of these sites.

One of the sites that the article looks at is Yelp. Yelp has scared the pants off your local yellow pages company by bringing to the web not only a dynamic way to find local businesses but by adding a social networking component of ratings to listings. The phone company used yellow page directories to give you the ability to make a call, companies like Yelp let you make your connections within the directory.

But the problem the advertiser finds, and the one focused on in today's Salon article, is that the reviews are given the same level of legitimacy as the content of the listing. Meaning that while your store may sell the best chocolate ever made, if someone doesn't like it, they can talk badly about your chocolate to your customers at the point when those customers are making their decision to buy from you.

As with all things online, it's important to keep an eye on the reviews of your business. They will always tell you something about how people are viewing you. And knowing how people view you is just one of the things AdSymetrix does.

AdSymetrix can let you know when someone has contacted you through any listing, any advertisement, anywhere. And knowing how they're finding you helps you find out what they're thinking about you.

Give AdSymetrix a try, sign up - and email and click tracking - are free .

Always Be Closing

Sure, it's axiomatic when talking about marketing your business to reflect upon the wisdom of Glengary GlenRoss, but there's a reason.

The idea that every moment of every day you need to continue to promote your business - that you "always be closing" - is central to creating the kinds of connections that translate casual encounters into business opportunities.

On this blog, we've been focusing on howAdSymetrix is a simple and easy way to understand who's looking at your ads and where, but we haven't mentioned how you can also track referrals.

AdSymetrix also lets you track the people who just happen to stop in, or talk to you at the game, or find out about your business through friends. Using AdSymetrix you can track their contacts with your company within our application. You can track who's contacting you through your business cards, or casual conversation or even through your email signatures.

Our goal is to give you the information you need to make better use of your promotional time and money. AdSymetrix gives you the knowledge you need to better understand how people find you, and how you convert them into customers. And the winner of that game gets a whole lot more than a new set of steak knives.

Give AdSymetrix a try. Click and Email tracking is free .

Maybe This Will Work

NBC has decided that the reason you're fast forwarding through commercials is because they aren't live enough. So, starting this week they've taken another page out of Uncle Miltie's book, and started doing live commericals during the Tonight Show.

The hope, as you're probably well aware by now, is to garner additional audience by offering something more interesting than regular commercial fare. Whether it makes you more inclined to watch, or more importantly buy, whatever is being promoted has yet to be determined.

Ultimately, it's a gimmick. NBC hopes that you'll be intrigued enough by live content to want to pay attention to their advertiser. The advertiser hopes that too.

The only real way to wash away the hope and replace it with results is to understand how your ads are working for you. AdSymetrix makes it easy. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your results. Then you'll know whether the risk of a live ad is worth anything to your business.

Reality Show in Reality an Advertisement

Just to bring home the point from today's earlier post, Gillette (or now P&G) is sponsoring an new reality show that, as it's executive says, "Really, the show is the ad".

Whether you decide to buy more razorblades because you've seen William Shatner learn to drive NASCAR isn't the point. Just know that the reason this show is on the air is because advertisers need to find new ways to get an audience. And they're going to keep throwing ideas at the wall until something sticks.

You can figure out what of your advertising sticks by using AdSymetrix with your next ad campaign. Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses, telling you how you can save money and make better decisions with your marketing dollar.

Pushing Your Message Everywhere

In Real Estate, the mantra is "location location location". In marketing the same thing could be said for repetition.

Recognition is but one step towards a sale, but it's an important one. That's why you see multiple locations for individual advertisements from a single organization. The repetition of message increases your ability to recall their services the next time you need something that they can sell.

As the current advertising market continues to splinter in to smaller and smaller groups, advertisers are looking for new ways to bring their message to more people, more often. One way that you're going to see more of is Branded Entertainment.

The idea behind branded entertainment isn't new. In the 1950s, Milton Berle was the biggest thing on television, and his show was called Texaco Star Theater. The brand Texaco taking top billing. Now you're more likely to see actual products showcased inside an episode than merely just the name of the company in the title, but the concept is the same.

Whether this works is still up in the air. Apple's gotten a lot of play out of always supplying Mac's to the good guys in movies and television shows, but their growing market percentage has more to do with their regular ads and innovative products than branded entertainment.

Ultimately, everything comes down to responses. And the best way to know whether your business decisions are the best business decisions is to us AdSymetrix. But you knew that already.

Giveaways that Give Back

You've seen them before, silly tsochkes, corporate swag, seemingly useless client giveaways that somehow you never seem to throw away.

Giveaways can be a good way to continue your relationship with your customers during the time when they aren't thinking about your products or service.

Two new ideas popped up online recently that deserve a bit of attention, Reactee and QIGO.

Reactee is the more traditional of the two new ideas. Using the online interface, you can create a t-shirt that gives a text messaging address. Anyone who sees the shirt can then send a message to the texting address and make contact with your organization. The idea takes logo-wearing to a whole new level.

QIGO uses a different approach. Their idea is to build off of the Staples Easy Button and give your potential customers USB key chains that when plugged into a computer allows for one button access to any website anywhere.

They're nifty ideas, and a step further out than just slapping your logo on some gift bags.

Nicely, AdSymetrix can help you understand just how effective any of these methods are for bringing new business to your business. The contact information given through both Reactee and QIGO can be Tracked and Monitored through AdSymetrix. Simply Tag Your Ads - in this case, your t-shirts and key chains - and watch as the responses roll in.

Give AdSymetrix a try, sign up is free.

Brand Building - Non-Response Advertising

Advertising should yield measurable results. Everything else in your life does, from your miles per gallon to the calories in your afternoon snack, why shouldn't your advertising?

For the most part, advertising that includes some sort of 'call to action' on the part of the viewer is great for your business. Place a "Call Now" next to a phone number and you'll be one step closer to actually getting that viewer to call you. And AdSymetrix has been designed specifically to help you understand the relationship between your ads and the responses they generate.

But you can put more in your next advertising campaign than just a giant phone number. You can integrate your call to action with something a bit less tangible, your brand.

It's been a while since we mentioned it here, but Brand Strategy is an important part of your marketing mix. Your company's brand is its personality. It's the thing people think about when they think about your company. Not just how they use your products or services, but how they feel about your business and why they trust you with their money.

One of the smartest people in branding is a guy named David Aaker. Harvard Business Review has made available a pamphlet online that shows how some companies have reached out to their customers in ways that expressed the companies' brands while still getting those all-important responses.

Growing your business is tough work. You need to keep your eye on all the ways that your potential customers see you. AdSymetrix has been designed to help. Simply Tag Your Ad and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses. And in one simple to understand webpage you can see just how your advertising is working.

Give it a try, Signup is Free.