Annual E-Marketing Issue

1. Consider Paid Search Engine Listings
2. Make Your Web Advertising Work Harder
3. Search Engine Positioning: Buyer Beware
4. Cool Tools: Innovative USB Devices

Executive Technology Briefing (ETB) Editor/Publisher: Jordan Ayan Contributing Editor: Chuck Frey

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As the economy slows down, nearly every executive is looking for innovative ways to get more done but spend less. From a competitive standpoint, a business downturn is a perfect time to get more aggressive -- and more creative in your marketing strategies. As your competitors cut their marketing programs to weather the downturn, it's a perfect opportunity to capture market share and extend your brand's visibility to even more prospective customers. As the saying goes, "don't compete -- create!"

Here are some innovative tools and strategies you can use to help make your online marketing efforts work harder AND smarter:

CONSIDER PAID SEARCH ENGINE LISTINGS

Paying a fee to have your Web site ranked higher in search engine listings is growing in effectiveness as an online marketing strategy. Paid inclusion means that you pay money to guarantee that your site will be included in a search engine's listings in a greater depth than would normally occur. AskJeeves, LookSmart and Inktomi offer this option. Yahoo! offers a Business Express service (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/busexpress.html), which guarantees that your site submission will be reviewed within 7 days for a fee of $199. But it only guarantees an express review; it doesn't guarantee that your site will be included in the Yahoo! directory.

According to Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com), sites that pay for search engine listings are likely to receive more traffic than those that don't. The more times and places your site is listed, the greater the odds that it will appear in various kinds of search results.

At GoTo.com, advertisers can "buy" search terms, to ensure that their Web site gets top ranking in search results. The more you pay, the higher your site is ranked. What makes this search engine strategically significant is that, in the last year, it has established itself as the premier provider of paid listings to the major search engines, including AltaVista, Lycos, HotBot, AOL and Netscape's NetCenter. I strongly urge you to experiment with buying a few key words on GoTo.com, and monitor the results. Paid listings are making major inroads at most of the major search engines, which means it should be integrated into every online marketing campaign.

MAKE YOUR WEB ADVERTISING WORK HARDER

As the effectiveness of conventional Web banner ads have started to decline, savvy marketers have developed new, creative online advertising solutions. Here are some of the most notable:

New ad sizes: Tall, narrow ads (called skyscrapers) now appear in a column on the right side of the page on some popular Web sites. This format is attention-getting, and gives marketers more room to tell a compelling story. We've also seen an influx of large, square ads placed right in the middle of Web page editorial content. This format has become popular on news and technology sites such as News.com (http://news.cnet.com). Web usability studies have shown that people usually look at text first, and tend to ignore graphics. Placing advertisements right in the middle of the content area of a page could be effective, but personally I find them to be intrusive and annoying.

Pop-up windows: Some news and technology sites, like eCompany.com (http://www.ecompany.com) have begun experimenting with advertisements that pop up in a separate browser window -- when you leave the site. These ads load in the background, after the content of the page you're viewing has downloaded to your browser. Then, it's ready to pop up as soon as you click away from their site. Not surprisingly, these sites are using pop-up ads to promote special subscription offers.

Interstitial ads: Interstitials are advertisements, often incorporating streaming multimedia content, that appear in the "dead time" while the page you requested is downloading to your browser. While they tend to be visually invasive to the user, they can be very effective at driving traffic to your Web site, because they tend to be dynamic and visually interesting. Usually, interstitials prompt users to either click through to read your offer, or they click to close the window.

EyeBlaster - A new and very creative online advertising platform was recently launched by EyeBlaster (http://www.eyeblaster.com). Rather than relying on new banner ad formats or interstitial formats, EyeBlaster overlays the host Web page with a transparent layer, displaying animated content on top of the existing Web page. EyeBlaster supports multiple rich media formats and allows advertisers to precisely position and control visual elements. It can even incorporate technologies such as "Sniffer" to detect whether or not the user's browser has an appropriate plug-in, and serve up an appropriate advertisement. For example, if a user's browser is equipped with a Flash plug-in, the server would display an animated ad, superimposed over the host Web page. If not, a conventional banner or pop-up ad would be displayed. EyeBlaster's Web site contains some very cool and exciting demonstrations of this innovative technology in action. I strongly urge you to check them out!

SOFTWARE TO ENHANCE YOUR E-MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

MindArrow - http://www.mindarrow.com
MindArrow Messenger is an authoring tool that allows companies to distribute sales and promotional messages using rich media -- which can help you to improve the response rates of your online direct marketing campaigns. Unlike plain e-mail messages, which are static, MindArrow messages can contain video clips, animation and other dynamic elements that are more visually appealing and engaging to recipients. MindArrow's Web site contains dozens of examples of these "multimedia postcards," which will give you plenty of ideas on how you might use this innovative direct marketing application in your business.

LinkToLink - http://www.linktolink.com
One way to increase your site's traffic -- as well as its ranking in many of the major Web search engines -- is to conduct a "reciprocal linking" program. LinktoLink, a new software program from Boundaries Unlimited, is designed to help remove much of the drudgery from managing a reciprocal linking program, from the initial contact to testing to make sure that those firms who agreed to provide a link to your have actually done so.

A tabbed interface makes it easy to track and update the status of dozens of reciprocal linking solicitations. It also provides templates to speed the creation of link solicitation e-mail messages, which can be customized and sent from within LinktoLink. The program is available in a free, advertising-supported version that can be used to track links for one Web site. A Pro version with enhanced features (without advertising) is also available for $34.95. Both versions can be downloaded for a 30-day trial from the LinktoLink Web site.

SEARCH ENGINE POSITIONING - BUYER BEWARE

Search engine positioning should be an integral part of every company's Internet marketing strategy. We won't try to make you a search engine expert, but we do think it's important for executives to know the questions they should ask about their Web site. Preparing your company's site for optimum positioning in the major Web search engines starts with several basic strategic planning principles:

First, develop a set of key words and phrases that describe your company and its products or services. Ask yourself, what words or phrases would my customers use on a Web search engine to find my company's Web site or types of products and services? Brainstorm additional key words using a thesaurus. Your list of key words and phrases will become the foundation of your search engine positioning strategy.

Use your key words in these locations on your Web pages:

- Title tag (appears in the top of visitors' browser windows), should be short, but offer more details than just the name of your company.

- Description and key word "meta tags," HTML code that isn't visible in a Web browser, but is indexed by some search engines.

- The text on your Web page.

- Alt tags - Several of the Web search engines index "alt tags" -- HTML tags that describe each image on your Web pages. Make sure that they contain information about your business, incorporating your key words. With most of the latest browsers, you can easily see what your alt tags are by simply rolling your mouse over an image, and it will display the alt tag wording.

- Submit your site's home page and other key content pages manually to key search engines. Most search engines provide detailed instructions on how to submit a site to them. Pay careful attention to these instructions! Then, submit these pages frequently (about once a month).

- Consider creating "doorway" pages that are optimized for each major Web search engine. These strategies take more space to explain than we have here in ETB, but a great resource to learn about this and other search engine optimization strategies is Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com).

Search engine positioning can be very time consuming and labor intensive. That's why you may want to consider outsourcing this Web marketing function, but be careful: there are many charlatans out there that claim they can guarantee you top positions in the major search engines. If it sounds too good to be true, chances are it probably is. If you decide to outsource your Web site's search engine positioning, here are some questions you should be sure to ask prospective vendors:

- What specific results have they achieved for other clients?
- What is their methodology for determining their clients' needs, implementing a search engine optimization strategy and measuring the results?
- Ask for the names and phone numbers of several of their clients, and call them for references.

If your business is perplexed over selecting the right keywords, or developing a search-engine strategy, please don't hesitate to give us a call. We offer a variety of services in this area.

COOL TOOLS: INNOVATIVE USB DEVICES

Traveling executives hate to carry a lot of cords and cables for all of their electronic devices. Several recently-introduced products can help you to lighten your load and increase your productivity; all three make innovative use of the USB ports that have become standard equipment on many laptop and desktop PCs:

Kensington FlyLight - http://www.kensington.com/products/pro_cas_d1334.html:
The FlyLight from Kensington Technology Group is small, flexible light that plugs into your notebook's USB port and illuminates your keyboard. Its flexible, durable neck allows you to position the soft, white LED light where you need it, and it draws less than 90 seconds per hour of your laptop's battery charge. It's ideal for low-light situations like a red-eye flight or a darkened conference room. The FlyLight costs $19.99, and is an excellent investment.

The Trek ThumbDrive portable storage device (http://www.thumbdrive.com) makes it easy to store and move large presentations and other data between desktop and laptop PCs equipped with USB ports. Roughly the size of a pack of gum with a USB plug sticking out of one end, the ThumbDrive requires no software, connection wires or batteries. It is available in several configurations, with capacities from 16MB to 512MB, plus a ThumbDrive Secure Pro, which adds access security features to protect your data -- ideal to protect your data from prying eyes if you would ever lose this diminutive storage device.

The 3Men USB charger from Jetta-Tech (http://www.jetta-tech.com) utilizes a laptop's USB port to charge PDAs and cellular phones. For mobile executives, this innovative tool can not only extend the life of these popular productivity tools, it can also help you to eliminate several bulky cords and AC transformers with a single USB cable.

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That's all for now! I welcome your comments and feedback on the Executive Technology Briefing, which will help me to focus it even more closely on your needs.

Jordan Ayan
President
Create-It! Inc.