Video display to boost online sales ?
I have been doing a bit of shopping online over the last 6 months and one area that has made a difference to my purchasing decision is the ability to view a video that is directly related to the product I am thinking of purchasing. I am not talking about finding the product and then researching to locate a product video that is related, I am talking about viewing the video on the site in question that sits right next to the add to cart button.
Here’s my example. I surf (as much as I can) and have for 30 years. So I know a bit about board design and functionality and the last thing you want to do is buy a board that just doesn’t work for you.
Normally you can walk into a shop - pick it up under your arm and just “know” it is the right board. This comes from years and years of testing mind you.
So now I want to buy a board online. I can’t feel it and trust my instincts, so what I find on one particular site is the ability to watch a video of the board shaper explain the rails, concave and rocker to me, and what type of surfer this suits in which conditions. It then demonstrates the board working in a variety of conditions by several surfers. That’s it ….. I just needed that little push to convince me.
Now there were no smoke and mirrors here - it was a video from the person that made the board backing his creation and several capable surfers proving it. It was honest upfront and the next best thing from actually feeling it and taking it for a test.
So for your business …. how can this help?
Well if your selling online how can you add credibility to your own products and obviously brand by displaying a video? Is it possible?
Before you dismiss it - take a look at some stats on video from Adage here.
I did read an article about the increase in conversions based on this fact - but can’t locate at the moment - will repost when I get my mits on it.
The Newspaper Industry - How bad is it?
Just a quick one today.
Was reading a lead from one of our Twitter Followers about the issues facing the US newspaper industry.
I won’t go into detail, however it is an interesting read that outlines the following (quoted from The Boston.com site).
“Newspapers have been hit hard by the loss of readers and advertisers to the Internet, while the national economic slowdown has intensified the advertising slump. In recent months, the Rocky Mountain News has closed, the Seattle Post Intelligencer has significantly reduced staffing and moved entirely onto the Web, and several major newspaper companies have filed for bankruptcy protection.
The New York Times Co. threatened earlier this month to shut down The Boston Globe unless its labor unions agree to $20 million in cost concessions, including pay and benefit cuts. The Globe is on track to lose $85 million this year, executives told labor representatives.”
Personally I like to read a newspaper from time to time, however I can’t really get the global coverage in all the areas that interest me in one paper - I guess it’s for this reason that I love being able to read online news stories from tech to business in all parts of the world. Also in another article discussed earlier here - we spoke about the new emerging market … the kids of today. They just don’t read the paper at all - that blog post here
Brand Awareness Online
One area that we go over a fair bit lately with our clients is the need to have a strong brand awareness strategy.
In short what this means in the online advertising world is that it is OK to embark on a strategy that just looks at promoting your business brand. Actually, it’s more than ok, it is a must.
You see the habits of off-line purchase decision making and online purchase decision making are very similar in many ways. I think we need to get out of our heads that off-line and online advertising are at 2 different ends of the spectrum. We also need to stop thinking about online advertising as clicks on ads.
A recent study performed by ComScore (adage N.Y) studied 139 online ad campaigns by marrying data from its panel of U.S. internet users with shopper data, found online ads, even when they didn’t result in a click, increased a consumer’s likelihood of making a purchase at an advertiser’s retail store by 17% and increased visits to a marketer’s website by an average of 40%.
What they are saying here is that your awareness of brands you spot as you travel the web stay with you long after you leave the computer and go about your daily life. What you want is for your clients to have brand recall of your products and services over that of your competitors. They can’t do this if they are not seeing you online.
Yes this means get your site optimised and increase traffic to it - but it also means think laterally. Where can you brand appear online. This can be in the form of banners, rich media advertising, contributing to social sites or the standard Google Ads. What works for one company may not work for another. Test analyse and re test - there is no secret here.
Just on a side note to those that say banner advertising is dead ….. yeah to a degree I think that the popup ads and misplaced “in your face” style has no place online. What I do love is a well thought out ad on a relevant site.
To give you an example - I drive a 1976 Kombi - I love this car and it is completely restored.
I visit the Kombi Forums often to chat and find new and better ways to keep her hummin along. It’s a very Niche site with a VERY niche market. On this site I found a well placed banner ad that wanted me to look at some amazing kombi parts on sale. …….. so I do …….. and I find a small site that just does that, and very well I might add.
So I keep going back, and again to purchase online and have stuff sent to me within a day or 2. This business is now full-time for the guy that started and growing.
I get stopped everyday by other kombi drivers and just people wanting to buy one and everytime I tell them about the Bus Stop …… so whats my point! - Advertise, get out there and test, analyse and build your business. No different to how it has always been.
Consider your market now and in 2014
Just read a interesting article by Steve Ruble regarding the fact that there will be no tangible ads by 2014 (We’re talking USA here) and while I don’t agree entirely with him, I do agree with many points made.
The one that really sticks out for us here is that in 2014 the demographic change will be that 13 to 15 year old kids today will be our 18 - 20 year old market then.
So looking at that - I know my own kids have NEVER picked up a paper to look for toys, bands, movie times or anything else. In fact my 6 year old just spent an hour last night online going over all the toy sites such as Target.com.au to do his xmas list to santa. He did this all on his own and only request for help was ” Is Indiana Jones with a space in it?” (must be some cool Indiana Jones lego stuff out there)
I don’t think this is a case of “when they get older they will discover the newspaper or print material”.
It is a complete shift away from the traditional print media or tangible media as Steve mentions to the online arena. Make of it what you will …. I know that if I wanted to ensure the effectiveness of my advertising dollar I would be working out now how I keep my 6, 9 and 14 year old happy in 2014.
Who are you marketing to?
Hey - its been a while and we are incredibly busy finalising the AQR purchasing model.
And Yes - we are close …. I know we keep saying it but it is true.
This is just a quick note on the new generation and the impact of digital marketing. What is interesting to note is that we all acknowledge that the teenagers don’t have a credit card to shop online (unless of course they “borrow” your own), but an interesting study by Don Tapscott, who draws on the $4 million research project that inspired his new book, Grown Up Digital, outlines that these kids spend all of their time researching online before buying.
The comments that we need to alter the traditional method of the 4 P’s strategy is important for all business owners. The “Net Generation” are ad resistant and being raised in the digital marketing age can see a cheezy ad from miles away.
And in case your not convinced on the power of this market here are a few stats from the article
Taken from Business Week Article -Net Gen Transforms Marketing
“In the U.S., students earn almost $200 billion a year in part-time or full-time jobs, and in 2006, they purchased $190 billion worth of goods. What’s more, they influence their baby boomer parents. Net Geners age 21 and under influence 81% of their families’ apparel purchases and 52% of car choices. Even younger children have powerful sway, with those between 5 and 14 influencing 78% of total grocery purchases. And, as they age, their direct purchasing power will soar. In 2003, only 5% of cars were purchased by people born between 1980 and 1995; by 2020, this will climb to 40%. “
Lookout ….. their coming - better get ready.
Noosa Businesses: Improve your ranking
Noosa Business Directory
Please visit our friends at OurNoosa.com. Help increase your search engine ranking by getting a free link back to your Noosa based business. Noosa businesses can submit their details to Our Noosa’s free noosa business directory today. Categories include:
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White Space Adserving Network
Well we have been working around the clock (ha … who isn’t in this industry) to finish off the adserving network and can happily say ……….. almost!
We are very close. Each day we test we realise we can make the interface and ability to purchase ads easier to use.
The irony is here that the simpler we make it for the user - the more complex the back end and code needs to be. It’s all for a good cause though!
Just to recap - the one thing that has bugged us over the years is the ability to understand exactly what it is worth to advertise on any given website. Many of you will have found a great site that really targets your precise demographic, only to find that you can’t get a reply on the advertising prices, they don’t know what it is worth, don’t offer any advertising or just price themselves out of the markets (YES … $10,000 is too expensive for 10,000 impressions).
I love the saying that if something bugs you, spend 5 minutes on how to improve it. If you can come up with a way to improve it in that time then you could be onto a good thing. Well here t WSM we ahve spent 12 months on it, so you know it is going to be great.
The short of it is that we have developed a score for each website that want to participate in the ad network. Each website that want to show ads on their pages (relevant ads mind you - not the crappy bingo type * sorry bingo guys) will receive a score out of 100. This score is known as an AQR™ - advertising quality rank™.
So the higher the AQR™ the more it will cost to advertise, but at least you also know how many visitors, the stick time, page impressions ….. even a score for how well a site is designed.
These factors plus dozens more make up the AQR™ which in turn allow you to browse our network and effectively benchmark sites at a glance BEFORE throwing money at them. Obviously we will provide weekly reports on how many impressions and click throughs etc just to make sure you understand the ROI for each campaign.
You can book the ads direct through us and even organise the creation of your creatives (if you don’t have any). We would like to think that any company looking to increase their brand recognition, promote a new service or sell products can spend 15 minutes in our network and spend a percentage of their online ad budget without any guesswork.
Your right ….. this is not new - in fact the IAB has reported here that Internet advertising revenues reached $5.8 billion for the first quarter of 2008, showing that advertising online will become the norm for most businesses. What we are doing is trying to simplify things to make your adplacements as profitable and effective as possible for you organisation - transparency, that’s what we are going for here.
Stay tuned….. just a bit longer 
How much to pay for online advertising?
I started really taking notice of the internet in 1995 after seeing a major company use a web address on a billboard in the middle of no-where. For me this was like the branding strategy of Coke - just blast it everywhere you can. (Not a strategy that many business can afford to do). However what really got me thinking was the fact they they had taken the effort to put the web address on the bottom of this 20 foot billboard.
Why? …. what did they know or expect was going to happen.
Well fast forward to today. Advertising online is a given now, not just on billboards, magazine ads, golf balls, pens, condoms (well … maybe not yet) but you get the idea.
Noosa Luxury Accommodation
New web site launching today (Aug 28th). Noosa Luxury Holidays is a basic site that aims at providing hand picked high end accommodation options for Noosa Heads. We are talking about unbelievable houses on Noosa Sound, Penthouses at Little Cove and Apartments, Penthouses at The Sound.
Eguide Travel
Just some samples of the banners developed for the eguide network.
Eguide Travel is a network of some travel related websites that offer loads of information in over 60 countries. We are just playing around with some 250 x 250 content banners to go into some local Australian sites to generate a bit of interest in their new booking service via carefully selected travel partners.
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How to contact us
There are several ways to get ion touch with us.
Start by visiting our contact page here. -
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Zinc Real Estate Noosa
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