Thanks all for your nice comments. Been busy with several projects, like eMarketer insight sessions.

Will try to keep posting in the new year.

<update>

With the crisis going on more money is shifting towards digital marketing. Probably because of the good possibility of measuring ROI.  Affiliate marketing is enjoying this most. Digital branding will have to wait a little. Just a little because more sources are proving that digital branding is good for ROI.

Affiliate marketers prefer big brands because they know this already.

Any chocolate lovers out there who want to start up a small project?

Meanwhile made my first money on twitter and poken (a Swiss invention) is getting bigger in the Netherlands

More and more research shows that display ads and in more general online branding is good for conversion.

If you only measure clicks, or even worse last-click, you miss the point of branding completely. People buy more easily when they know your brand or after seeing your display ads.

Check this article about engagement mapping from Microsoft advertising.

eMarketer recently published an article:  eMarketer seven strategies. In this article (starting from page 15) eMarketer shows even the impact of display advertising on Offline sales.

So people learn about your brand online and finally buy offline.

ps. I have business connections with eMarketer

It is again time for a restyle.

Banners and advertising are getting visually very attractive. However most websites stay behind.

If your customer clicks on your well animated banner and comes on your website, be careful the two match. Due two the use of flash in advertising your landing page or company website  is becoming a sort of disappointment.

Most websites are still built around text. This is changing fast. The web is getting more visual. We are able to send out and consume more pictures, video’s etc.

For Brands this is a very welcome change. With the combination of image and text your message can get out stronger. The only thing is don’t stay behind. Avoid the risk of looking poor.

If your banners look better than your website you know it is time for a change. You could either change your banners or change your website.

I would chose the latter.

Google is doing an experiment on mapping searches for “flu” and so probably mapping where there is a flu outbreak in real life. (correlation between flu-searches and real flu)

Check Google Flu Trends (thanks to hyped.nl)

Interesting relation between search and real-life issue’s. Marketing and Brand managers must actively  spot such trends because following a trend is much easier than creating one.

Start following Google Zeitgeist

Check out the rising searches for Switzerland for the last 30 days.

Twitter goes mainstream says an article in The Wall Street Journal and I think it is.

Last week I noticed a few new starters and besides that you see more and more companies using and tracking twitter.

I mentioned earlier the respond on my complaints about netvibes on twitter and their active reply. You see this happening more often. Lately I had the same thing with skype while complaining about the quality.

One thing to be careful for as a company on twitter is again that you deliver value. There are a bunch of companies which just publish their rss feeds to twitter. That is not so bad. But the thing is they never respond if you send them a message. So no interaction.

About this going meanstream this seems more the case in the US. Counting Swiss Tweets look at swisstweets.chor follow swisstweet on twitter. The amount of twitter users in Switzerland is not much, but think also about the quality of its visitors.

Just before the weekend some more thoughts.

Referring to my last post about female digital behaviour. It is often said that in marketing targeting women is often overlooked but very important. Women buy more than man, have a big influence in the decision making process. I think their influence is even growing since women have more often their own job. Which results in more confidence, girlpower. “All the honeys making money“

You even see more and more families in which the women making more money than the man (in the Netherlands at least). I call them Girl leading couples myself.

Research has shown that if you want to target women you need to think further than a pink product or website. We also know that social networks without a specific cause are more used by women than by man. Man prefer social networks like linkedin.com. Can we conclude that women enjoy more the communications itself? I think so.

Women like to share. With the growing amount of social networks, connecting alone is not enough anymore. What has your network to offer. Is it more local, more subject orientated… but maybe we should think more in concepts here.

I still miss the voice of advertising agencies in the interactive field. Advertising agencies have a huge experience in concepting. Large agencies like Saatchi and TBWA have some basic emotion as a core value like love, disruption etc.

Maybe it is time to start social networks based on a concept or emotion in which a certain emotion is the connecting factor. Let’s call them EmoNetworks.

Think about their use in branding. Disruption network, love network, anger network, nostalgy network.. This year the domainname www.bored.com was sold for millions.

Never underestimate emotions. Communism was based on emotions.

By rob

Most people think of Google Adwords as a tool for acquiring new clients cost effectively. And of course it is a good direct marketing tool. However creatives and advertising agencies should use it as well.

As an advertising agency you need to get as much information as possible about your audience. You want to know their need, their interests etc. Adwords can give you this information. It gives you focus, some clues to brainstorm on. Yes it makes a difference if you know that people are looking for blue shoes lately in stead of red ones. So learn more about how to use Adwords as a market research tool.

Besides Adwords as a research or inspiration tool. It can also be a good tool for branding, getting attention etc. Of course you can learn more about Adwords for branding. However you don’t see much of a creative use of adwords yet.

Most Adwords Ads are like “need a car?, come to us” which is of course effective in DM. But Adwords for branding will need a different approach. What about using estrange statements like “My car is better than yours” or using slogans and redirect to customer feedback “BMW Sheer driving pleasure, want to see what others think” etc…

Start building or reinforcing brand associations.

Most people still have the feeling that making good money online is for big businesses and brands. However the Internet makes it easier than ever to start your own business with almost nothing to invest.

Big companies are often moving slow and if you hit the right market those big companies’ only solution is to buy your innovative fast growing online business.

Here are some tips to get you started.

• Most people think of selling things. When you have indeed a product to sell. You can just start by creating an online shop with for example Amazon Webstore or sites like eBay and start right away. I know someone who is just selling Ikea stuff on eBay. Some people just don’t know how cheap Ikea is and she makes a profit.
• If you don’t have a product to sell. You can either sell a service like cleaning, consultancy etc. Or you can start buying cheap products from China on alibaba.com.
• Best of all is just to start selling product of others. Become a publishers for an affiliate network like Tradedoubler.com and start selling. You get a commission for each sale you make. You may need a website which you create with free online tools. You can also use advertising like Google Adwords and redirect your clicks to get the commission. (read the affiliate program regulations)
• If you think affiliate marketing is too complicated just get started with sites like Friendhunter.nl. On friendhunter you can become a headhunter in one minute. You just register on the site. Then you start to contact all your friends asking if they are interested in this wonderful new job you saw.
• Talking about friends. It is good to have a lot a friends online. If you have a lot of online contacts or friends in for example social networks. People are also willing to pay for just sending these friends a message.
• More like a creative one. Act like a Brand. Be creative. Do what you love most. Because then you have never ending energy and ideas. When you have a brought idea/concept. Give it a name and logo. Start spreading this idea, keep moving. You will become an online identity which people trust, like, hate. Big Brands will want to be associated with you.

Good luck! End keep me updated.

Check out how top brands are doing in social media. Read The top Brand in Social media report 2008.

As expected: It is increasingly clear that the level of a brand’s engagement with the ever growing online community is beginning to have a direct correlation with that brand’s reputation.

And the balance of power has shifted - with control passing from the brands themselves to the consumers.
(source marketingfacts.nl)

Want to check your Brand yourself?

Looking at the report’s Methodology: You can start by measuring the number of times your brand is mentioned on Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, Digg, Twitter Del.icio.us and Board Reader. And you can do a search on Google blog search and Technorati.com. After measuring the quantity you have to start looking for the tone of voice as well…

-Want to learn more about using Social Networks.

-BTW Interbrand has an office in Nyon.