MarketingSherpa Blog

Wahoo! The average amount a Blogwriter makes by selling ads via BlogAds has gone up from $30 to $50 month, with the really red hot sites pulling $750 monthly.

My favorite part of this site is the personality with which many Bloggers write their little media selling blurbs. “7000+ blog traders are a prime audience for your gizmo or service. Expect good things from their evil capitalist machinations,” reads one. “Sell something to our readers. Click the clicky.” says another.

Makes mainstream media kits sound so stuffy.

http://www.blogads.com/order_html

Back when Google launched its contextual editorial ads (ads which appear on content sites vs search results) a couple of months ago, I poked their spokeswoman a bit on the subject of how they chose the partner sites involved, which at the time had to have millions of visitors per month to qualify to join the program. After all, the best AdWords advertiser results invariably come from very niche keywords and search terms, the exact kind of stuff you find best on niche sites.

This morning Google announced it is throwing open the doors to all publishers who want to join, regardless of size. The new program, entitled AdSense, allows any publisher to pick up and carry Google AdWords content ads on their sites in exchange for a cut of click revenue.

I’ll be interested to follow results metrics of ads in future to see if the swarms of niche sites which will no doubt join will help advertisers get better results. (Results from Google non-search content ads so far have been generally abysmal in terms of clicks, and slightly below par in terms of conversions according to hundreds of MarketingSherpa readers surveyed earlier this
year.)

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2314

Thanks to Barbara Kaplowitz for this link to First Monday’s article on business models shaping eight Net-based news sites.

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_6/schiff/index.html

Are blogs seriously entering the realm of business? Although numbers of bloggers have grown vastly in the past 2 years, and I
hear about some consultants and writers who use them as a publicity device, I have yet to hear about anyone making serious money with a Blog. Nor, frankly did I expect to because
they are very personal. More of a hobby and lite PR device than a for-profit product.

Which is why I was surprised when JupiterMedia did a business conference last week on the subject. Who would pay serious money for a ticket to learn about a business that is not that profitable?

According to the photos taken at the event (see link below), some people did. (I recognize enough faces as reporters, speakers and vendor sales reps through, so I can’t say what percent of this packed room is businesspeople who want to blog as a profit
center.)

The most notable shot is of speaker David Weinberg’s drawing of the inner-outer circles of Blogging. The inner circle is “private, authentic, real” while the outer circle is “public, artificial.”

This sums up the business potential of blogging to me. The more you start to market within a Blog and start to look for the kind
of traffic, reach and sales that would create a profitable business, the more you go to the outer circle (A.K.A. the dark side), leaving truly powerful Blog content behind.

http://danbricklin.com/log/jupiterclickz200306.htm

Mitch Ratcliffe, former head of content for ON24, has launched a new group Blog with a few friends called Correspondences.org. The goal, he explained to me, is to become the vastest local community news organization in the world. He wants content to be provided by the people for the people. “It’s a civic journal.
Citizens talking about life.”

Which means anyone can be a reporter in text, audio or video.

While he has grand visions of thousands of local “reporter-citizens” joining the non-paying staff, and someday dedicating entire sites just to local communities, he doesn’t think this will make much money. “I’ll be happy to break-even.”

He is considering selling text-links, and lots of logo-ed t-shirts, hats, etc., to anyone who ever wanted to embrace the glamour of being a member of the press.

http://www.correspondences.org

Are some emailers being duped by junk list owners?

Our Relations Director Aimee called me this morning to say, “You have to warn me next time before you publish a really controversial issue!”
Turns out she’s been deluged with calls and email in the 24 hours since I published an EmailSherpa article that named the names of 25 mailers we suspected could be using junk lists.

Several mailers were (very) unhappily surprised to see their names on the list.

I created the list by glancing over the mail that we get in an email box here at Sherpa that doesn’t actually belong to anyone. Since no one “owns” it, no one has ever used the email address to sign up for any list. Therefore, I figured the 300-odd promotional emails the box gets every day must ipso-facto be coming from mailers using non-permission junk lists.

As I said, it turns out some of those mailers were shocked to find their names published by us as people using junk lists. Turns out they were promised by whoever they rented the names from that it was a permission list. It wasn’t.

I’m not saying all rented lists are bad. Heavens no. In fact I strongly support the permission rental industry.

Personally there are some hobby lists that I sign up for hoping to get promotional mail, because as a consumer I’m deeply interested in offers in those niches. I’m sure many of you
feel the same way.

Anyway, tirade aside, you can find the article where I named names below: It’s #5.

Thanks for your support,

Anne
Anne Holland – Publisher
MarketingSherpa
AHolland@MarketingSherpa.com

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CASE STUDIES
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#2. How Tweaking a Business Web Site’s Design Can Increase the Sales Leads it Generates by 60%

If you agonize over your company’s Web site lay-out, you’ll love this Case Study because it includes before-and-after screenshots showing how to change home page and registration form can improve results.

Plus – if you wonder how asking many questions vs. few on a registration form affects the number of people who will fill out your form, this Case Study has an answer for you:
http://www.b2bmarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2368

#3. Go RVing Integrated Online/Offline Ads Rank in Top 10% of All Campaigns Measured for Effectiveness

We hounded the folks at Go RVing to let us write this Case Study after we saw one of their ads, and thought, “This is so great looking, did it work?”

Learn how their multi-channel campaign, including radio, TV, print and online, did incredibly well by using best media buying, creative and offer practices. Yes, lots of creative
samples are included from online and offline media:
http://www.consumermarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2374

#4. PC World Tests Selling PDFs and CD ROMs Online: What They Learned:

If there’s one lesson to be learned from this Case Study, it’s that sometimes you have to keep projects simple to get them off the ground at all. PC World’s Bruce McCurdy deliberately avoided fancy tests, tracking heaps of metrics, and investing in an ecommerce backend, when he decided to test selling PDFs and CD ROMs for the first time.

The point was to get the answer to a single question: Will people buy these items at all? Here’s what he discovered:
http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2370

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PRACTICAL KNOW-HOW
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#5. Big Threats for Emailers Part II: False Positives & Offers Sent to Junk Lists in Your Name

In Part II of our special report for legitimate mailers and brands trying to avoid problems posed by the increase in junk email, you’ll find:
a. What to do when your mail is stopped by Corporate filters
b. Junk Mail Still Arriving from 15 Legitimate Brands
c. List of Some Third-Party Offer Emailers Using Junk Lists

Definitely worth a read if you send any broadcast email at all or if you let third party mailers send on your behalf:
http://www.emailsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2371

#6. How Aubuchon Hardware Doubled Online Sales by Improving Search Engine Optimization: 5 Specific Tips

Fascinating fact: Aubuchon Hardware revamped their site entirely in September 2002 specifically to encourage search engines to notice it. However, it took until well into November for the new site to have any affect. So, while optimization is definitely worth investing in, you have to wait 60-120 days for real results. More info:
http://www.greatmindsinmarketing.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2373

#7. How to be Featured in a Baseline IT Case Study

Ziff Davis just launched Baseline Magazine fairly recently, so it may not be on your PR screen yet. However, it’s already got 125,000 avid readers, so this is definitely a place you want to plant a story if you’re trying to reach IT pros. Here’s how:
http://www.marketingfame.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2372

On the trendspotting front, although practically none of my EmailSherpa readers (13,000 major broadcast emailers) said they
think RSS is interesting yet, I’m guessing that same question six months from now will get much hotter response because this been- a-baby-forever trend finally is starting to build steam fast. For example, according to AdWeek’s Technology Marketing yesterday
Infoworld became the “first” publisher to build ads into its RSS feed.

http://www.technologymarketing.com/mc/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1910272

Today I spotted two print mag sub offers that are using pop-ups to convert nos into yes’. If you go to PC World’s online magazine order form and then you decide against buying, as you click away up comes a colorful pop-up with the headline, “Are you sure you want to pass up [the offer]?”

(Which is, as Bruce McCurdy, PC World’s Online Product Development Manager, says, hugely ironic because PC World editors are constantly running front page stories on how to get rid of pop-ups.)

Baseline Magazine, which is a new Ziff Davis title for IT pros, tries a variation on this theme. Instead of a pop-up that looks
advertising-ish, their pop-up when you leave the form without subscribing looks like one of those official grey rectangular boxes your PC uses to ask for instructions sometimes.

The copy begins, “Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page? The form should take under 5 minutes to complete,
etc.” Then the user is prompted to click either “OK” to continue leaving the page, or “cancel” to stay on the page and keep
filling out the form.

http://www.pcworld.com
Baseline: http://www.omeda.com/ziff/bsl/bsl.cgi?p=homepage

Thanks to all of you who wrote me in response to last week’s SherpaBlog. Here is a quick summary of what I’ve learned from you:

– Pages must print:

If you decide to switch right-hand links to the left-side of pages based on the usability lab research I mentioned last week, make sure users can print pages without losing any information off the right edge.

I had our Web guy Ryan add a “print this story” button to the top and bottom of every article on our site to help with this problem.

– SEO is unaffected:

For those of you who were concerned that your search engine optimization might be affected by moving links from the right to the left, I asked expert Jill Whalen of HighRanks.com for advice.

Jill said, “Either way of having the links makes absolutely no

difference to the search engines. Unless your HTML page is over 110K (not including graphics), the spiders will index *all* the content and follow *all* the links.”

– For eCommerce keep your buy button right-side:

Click analysis researcher, David Niu of NetConversions told me based on his data, “A retail best-practice that we’ve observed is that call-to-action should be placed on the right-hand side and most cross sell and up sell opportunities are also best placed there or under the product.”

– In email, right-side links not always visible:

Loads of you wrote in to note that when it comes to email newsletters, you do not always open your window all the way to read. Smaller windows = right-hand columns being cut off.

If a newsletter (or other mailer) wants clicks, don’t put critical stuff over on the far right.

Until next week�

Thanks for your support,

Anne

Anne Holland – Publisher

MarketingSherpa

AHolland@MarketingSherpa.com

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CASE STUDIES

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#2. Vary Email Creative by Region for Higher Response

At long last, we got someone besides a travel company, to go on the record saying that different offers and creative work better in different parts of the US.

Pamela Hoffman at Ajilon discovered strong regional biases quite by accident when she created an email campaign template library for her company’s 100+ regional sales offices. Turns out account reps in and clients in California liked very different campaigns than the Midwest, or Northeast. More here, including some creative samples: http://www.b2bmarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2362

#3. How to Target Asian Americans Through Integrated Online/Offline Marketing

Every wondered what it’s like to market a Broadway show? Here’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes story, including results.

This is a must-read if you are involved in grassroots community-based efforts, or you’re hoping to learn more about how to approach the Asian American demographic. Plus, includes a photo of the coolest promotional t-shirt we’ve ever seen: http://www.consumermarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2367

#4. How to Make a Niche Community Site Profitable; Plus 4 Ways to Market CD ROMs to Your Members

If you market to mothers of young children, you’ll find some fascinating insights into the demographic in this story.

Also, if you’ve ever dreamed of quitting your corporate job and starting your own online publishing company for profit, you’ll be inspired by this story of a husband and wife team who are living the entrepreneurial life-style in Austin Texas.

P.S: Be sure to click on the link to creative samples at the end of Case Study, because their clean design is really lovely:

http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2363

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PRACTICAL KNOW-HOW

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#5. Special Report: How Rising Junk Mail Rate Affects Legit eMailers: 36 Brands Accused of Spamming

What do Amazon, Dupont, Marriott, Crate & Barrel and Bank of America have in common? In the last 24 hours each has been accused of being a suspected spammer by consumers. Ouch.

In part I of our Special Report on how the rising junk mail rate affects legitimate emailers, you’ll learn:

Just found this fun little MagBlog from the folks at PressFlex who build sites for print mags. It features links to news and
articles on how to sell print magazine subs via online marketing, something which I’ve definitely felt the print folks could be doing *much* more of.

Also features enough typos to make me feel better about my own lame spelling habits. Of course they are Hungarians blogging bravely in English, while I’m typo-ing away in my native
language.

http://magazines.pressflex.com/news/categoryfront.php/id/7/MagBlog.html