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Nielsen Wants to Take the Mystery out of Measuring Online Advertising

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:00:50 +0000

Nielsen Wants to Take the Mystery out of Measuring Online Advertising

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

What do you say when someone asks how your online
advertising is performing? It’s a good question, but the answer can be nebulous
because measuring ad results online is a difficult proposition. It’s
difficult to decipher what the metrics really mean and it’s difficult to
compare your results with another media. And then there’s the accuracy issue.

No wonder businesses that utilize the internet and social
media avenues often complain that online isn’t getting its fair share of the
advertising dollar. That’s partly due to the fact that many advertisers — and
especially brand advertisers — are reluctant to spend online because of faulty
measuring tools. Metrics are at the heart of assessing how your online
advertising is performing. And the current practice of gathering information
and slicing and dicing the data is neither accurate nor timely.

Enter Nielsen, the company that’s been following audience and advertising metrics since the 1920s. These are the same folks who brought us the famous Nielsen Ratings, a method of measuring just exactly who is watching television and what are they watching.

Last month, Nielsen announced that it has developed a new online advertising measurement system it calls the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings. The company claims this tool can provide audience information measurements for the Web that are comparable to its better-known television ratings. And the company says it can deliver this information with greater accuracy, faster reporting and wider coverage than what’s currently available.

Impressively, Nielsen has recruited some industry big hitters to help test the system, including Facebook, Procter & Gamble, Verizon Wireless and Starcom MediaVest. To turn this metric into an acceptable industry standard by next year, Nielsen is urging other online publishers and advertisers to participate in the program.

Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings is said to provide marketers with a more accurate look at their return on investment and give media companies a way to prove the value of their audience. And both will have an easier method of measuring the combined “reach” of television, the internet and mobile advertising. (Reach is the number of homes or people exposed to an advertising schedule over a specified period of time — without duplication.)

And since reach doesn’t tell the whole story, Nielsen combines the ratings with cross-platform advertising effectiveness metrics to get a complete picture. The system combines Nielsen’s tried-and-true TV and online panel data with demographic information that is gathered from volunteer online data contributors (who remain anonymous). In that way, Nielsen says it can provide reach, frequency (the number of times a household is exposed to the schedule in a given period of time), and Gross Rating Point (the aggregate total of the ratings).

Here’s how the program measures the audience makeup of a particular advertisement. Nielsen requests a pixel whenever a particular advertisement is displayed in a browser. These pixels travel to Nielsen as well as to approved data contributors. These data contributors provide reports with reach and frequency information in age and gender brackets — again, anonymously. Nielsen then combines these reports with data from its TV and online panels, culminating in one report that shows reach, frequency and GRPs for the target ad. A second process matches the IP address of the pixel to one of Nielsen’s 210 designated market areas.

The Nielsen system is seen as a way to provide a more accurate picture of impressions delivered by different sites to different demographics and help improve the duplication between television and online. And the company said its online system will help advertisers, marketers and websites to become more efficient at building reach and frequency among their desired audiences.

Thoughts on Twitter Versus Facebook for Business

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:07:19 +0000

Thoughts on Twitter Versus Facebook for Business

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

I’m of the opinion there are two camps when it comes to
online marketing and the use of social media to drive business messaging and customer action:

Those who mostly use Facebook
Those who mostly use Twitter

Sure, many businesses display the blue-based badges for
both Facebook and Twitter on their homepage, which suggests that they maintain
an active profile on both platforms. But if you take the time to analyze their
efforts, you’ll find that in most cases, only one profile is kept current. And it’s that profile that might stand a chance of
producing positive measurable results.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic: Don’t think for one moment that automatically sending your Facebook status updates or blog posts to Twitter — or vice versa — means you’re keeping either of those social media platforms up to date. In fact, if that single action accounts for half or more of what you do on Facebook or Twitter, it’s a sign of laziness — not to mention being out of touch.

So when someone asks me why Twitter doesn’t produce the same type of results for their business as Facebook, or they want to know how they can use Twitter to lift sales and grow their business, I tell them they’re asking the wrong question. The best way to determine which social networking platform is best for your business and then how to use it starts with having a clear understanding of who your customers are; where it is online that your customers choose to gather and why; and what exactly it is that motivates your customers to act.

Once you have that information in hand, you’ll likely have the answer to your question.

What’s important to know is that these two platforms are inherently different. These days, for instance, pretty much everybody knows what Facebook is. The same can’t be said about Twitter. And therein lies one of many challenges facing the businesses that choose that platform. Put simply, anytime you have to stop to explain to your customers how to use a service, in addition to why they should use it, you’ve lost them.

Other challenges associated with using Twitter include:

Characters: Twitter limits the number of characters in its messages to 140. While communicating in 140-character messages isn’t impossible (far from it in fact), for those new to truncated communications, it can be rather challenging.

Images: As I pointed out in last Thursday’s entry (New Report Uncovers the Anatomy of a Facebook Post), messages with embedded images tend to receive more attention. And since Twitter doesn’t naturally conform to embedded images, it’s just not as useful or as inclusive a platform as Facebook.

Branding: Facebook, aside from your profile image, presents a clean and unified user experience from page to page. Twitter allows users to customize their page’s background, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the user’s talents. If done correctly and according to recommended specifications, a branded Twitter page can look spectacular. Unfortunately, more often than not — and due to a variety of factors — most business-customized Twitter backgrounds look butt ugly. Not nearly as awful as the majority of MySpace pages, but bad nonetheless.

Timeliness: Twitter is an “in the moment” and “moment-to-moment” platform. If your audience isn’t online and paying attention at the moment you hit the Tweet button, chances are your message only reaches a small percentage of your intended audience. On Facebook, businesses have Pages, which users are accustomed to visiting and then scrolling through.

Usage: You might have noticed that it’s a lot easier to use Twitter improperly than Facebook. As a result, some people report experiencing irrelevant noise and chatter, which ultimately makes Twitter less useful — and more annoying — for some.

Before you get the wrong idea, I’m not suggesting that businesses shy away from using Twitter; nor am I intimating that Twitter holds little or no value to businesses. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Numerous case studies from leading brands such as JetBlue, Dell and American Apparel (as well as from smaller organizations such as Teusner Wines, CoffeeGroundz, and even the U.S. Geological Survey) clearly outline how Twitter is being used to help businesses meet and exceed their goals.

But if you’re wondering why Twitter doesn’t produce the same results as Facebook or other socially engaging efforts, it may not be you. It might just be the platform. In any event, to get a leg up on exactly how to use Twitter to support your business-related goals, read Twitter’s 101 Guide for Businesses.

You might say a little bird sent you.

Does It Pay to Cut Prices?

admin — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 04:45:04 +0000

Does It Pay to Cut Prices?

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

With everybody from Starbucks to Apple cutting prices during the recession, it’s little wonder that small businesses are feeling pricing pressure, too.

But, if your business needs a pick-me-up, does it really make sense to cut prices or offer discounts at a time when your customers may not be in the mood to buy?Before you pull the trigger on your pricing gun, step back and ask yourself these questions:

•
Do you know how much money you make on every sale?

Most
businesses focus on two metrics — sales and bottom-line profits — to gauge
their financial success. By contrast, gross margin — the ratio of gross profit
to revenue — measures your company’s efficiency in turning raw materials into sales. Think of it like this: For every $1 of sales that your company rings up,
how much money do you have left over after buying the materials and other
supplies necessary to make your product or provide your service? If the answer is
50 cents, your gross margin is 50%. If your prices aren’t high enough to allow
you to maintain at least a 20% gross margin on every sale, it’s unlikely that
your business is going to be able to clear much of a profit after you
subtract rent, payroll, insurance and other fixed expenses.

•
Do you have “people costs” you need to cover?

Just
because you’ve got a gross margin of 50% doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re
making a healthy profit. That’s why your pricing needs to reflect your total
cost of doing business (not just your cost of goods sold), which, in many cases, can be much
higher. Don’t forget to factor in the “people” costs — the admins, sales reps, production staff, contractors, etc. who do the work that makes your company tick. Before you cut your prices, remember
that you need to pay these people, too!

•
Do you need to pay to bring business in the door?

If
you run a restaurant or retail store, customers walk in the door and you don’t
have to worry about paying for sales leads and referrals. But that isn’t true
of a manufacturing or service business in which small businesses without their own
sales force rely on the Internet or on independent reps or agents to bring them customers and orders.
Depending on the industry, these reps can charge commissions as high as 20% on
every sale. Web traffic isn’t cheap, either. That’s why, if you need
to rely on third parties to help sell your product or service, it’s important
to build in enough margin to maintain a distribution network and still make a profit.

The bottom line: If you’ve got a good relationship with your customers and sell
a specialized product or service that the market wants and needs, you should try to find a way to hold the line on prices without losing business — and build a solid
foundation for your company’s future. If not, it may be time to go back to Starbucks
for a $2 cup of Joe.

myBrainshark Makes Your PowerPoint a Big Star on YouTube

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:00:21 +0000

myBrainshark Makes Your PowerPoint a Big Star on YouTube

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

Brainshark Inc. has just opened up an ocean of access to its on-demand multimedia customers by introducing a new feature that enables businesses and entrepreneurs to share their PowerPoint presentations on YouTube–at no cost to the participating company.

Started 10 years ago, Brainshark provides a web-based Software as a Service platform that allows your business to create and share on-demand, multimedia content, and access deep metrics associated with it. The Massachusetts-based company has built a polished online platform that walks you though converting PowerPoint slides–as well as other materials such as PDF files–into powerful voice-enriched Flash presentations that are suitable for YouTube, your own website or company blog, and even e-mail marketing campaigns. A year ago this month, Brainshark launched myBrainshark–a free version of its software well-suited to entrepreneurs and small business users.

Brainshark has long lurked in the waters of multimedia communication for savvy businesses that appreciate the benefits of publishing their PowerPoint presentations on their own website or blog, accompanied by audio and voice narration, and viewed through an easy-to-use player.

But the real beauty of Brainshark and myBrainshark may just be in your
ability to tap into deep reporting metrics after you distribute your
content. The toothy platform lets you see who and how many people are
watching your presentation, how long each viewer stays with the show,
where they’re watching (by country as well as by state in the U.S.) and
much more. This is valuable information for your sales and marketing
departments, which will get an accurate notion as to how buyers and
others are receiving the content and how it is influencing buying
cycles.

And now Brainshark for YouTube–introduced to the public just yesterday
afternoon–is a free service for Brainshark’s enterprise customers as
well as those who take advantage of the myBrainshark.com site. Using
only a PowerPoint deck and a phone (or a computer microphone), you can
immediately create high-impact business content that’s ready to post on
YouTube. No muss, no fuss.

This new service makes it possible for anyone who possesses the basic
skill set to create a PowerPoint presentation to successfully tap into
the power of high-impact online video marketing by publishing and
distributing it as a YouTube file. In short, myBrainshark makes it
possible for your company to engage in a feeding frenzy of online video
marketing, greatly expanding the reach of your message and how people
consume it. Think of it as the democratization of multimedia
presentations.

Brainshark and myBrainshark presentations can be viewed online at any
time and from anywhere in the world by your customers, your sales staff,
HR professionals for training purposes, or anyone else who can benefit
from self-guided presentations. Better yet, the multimedia presentations
can also be viewed on mobile devices including smartphones and iPads,
and combine PowerPoint slides, documents, photos, background music and
voice narration that can be added–via phone or computer
microphone–from a continent away.

With yesterday’s announcement, myBrainshark users who have a YouTube
account can upload PowerPoint decks to myBrainshark and add their voice,
and then seamlessly upload the resulting presentations as video files
to YouTube–with titles, descriptions and tags intact. Then it’s just a
matter of publishing a link to the audience you have
targeted–employees, sales prospects, customers, partners and all those
who influence your business–enabling them to experience your content at
their convenience, whenever and wherever they want. In addition to
viewing the YouTube video, your audience can still watch the multimedia
presentation on myBrainshark too.

Like everything else, there are several downsides, but they are minor.
For one thing, you must abide by YouTube’s 15-minute rule, which means
your file can run no longer than 15 minutes if you’re posting it on
YouTube. But that problem is solved by the fact that, when uploaded on
Brainshark.com, the ocean’s the limit on the length of your
presentation.

The only other annoyance–and again, it’s slight–is the fact that
because of YouTube’s aspect ratio, your Brainshark presentation won’t
fill the entire screen, leaving gutters on either side.

To get started on myBrainshark–taking advantage of the site and ability
to publish presentations to YouTube–follow these simple steps:

1. Upload your PowerPoint presentation:

2. Add voice to the presentation using the provided telephone number or your computer microphone:

3. Edit your presentation’s properties, including title, description,
categories and tags, and choose the option to publish to your YouTube
channel or account:

That’s it–your voice-enriched presentation is ready for viewing on
myBrainshark and (if you’ve opted for this) as a video on YouTube.

myBrainshark is available in three flavors:
Free, Pro, and Pro Trainer. Advanced features related to privacy and
enhanced reporting are available in the Pro edition, while the Pro
Trainer edition includes eLearning features such as the ability to
insert test questions and applying scoring, issue certificates of
completion upon your viewers meeting your predefined requirements, the
ability to integrate courses with your learning management system, and
more.

For more information, visit http://my.brainshark.com.

Why the Real-Estate Slump Could be Killing Small Business Hiring

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:59:04 +0000

Why the Real-Estate Slump Could be Killing Small Business Hiring

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

A lot of theories have been circulated for why small businesses aren’t hiring — the bank lending crunch, emotional nervousness about the economy, high taxes, low sales. This week, noted Case Western Reserve University professor Scott Shane weighed in with his theory: It’s all about the residential real-estate collapse.
Shane gives several reasons why the real-estate bubble’s pop has paralyzed entrepreneurs. Among them:

1) A disproportionate amount of the products and services small businesses sell are tied to home sales. Independent realtors, small contruction contractors, interior decorators, decor boutiques…they all take the hit when home sales slow.

2) Many entrepreneurs have historically used their own home as their business-funding piggybank. With many homes now devoid of equity, there’s less cash cushion with which to take a risk and put on a new hire.

3) Banks’ lending was choked off in part because of their mortgage-loan problems. So just when the home-equity piggybank ran dry, banks also balked at loans.