Online Internet Marketing - Internet Marketing Trends

Google new Advertisement Click to Buy Links AdSense for Games Platform

2008-10-08T04:07:00.000-07:00

Google unleashed two new forms of advertisements: click to buy links on YouTube And in-game advertising platform ( $1 billion advertising market in 2007 ) Called AdSense for Games.

AdSense for Games, the platform will offer advertisers access to millions of Web-based Flash games.

AdSense for Games allows advertisers to very easily gain access to in-game inventory.With AdSense for Games, advertisers can target campaigns based on keywords, genres or even specific games. Revenue, based on cost-per-impression or cost-per-click metrics, is split between Google and developers. Inventory is filled via auctions where advertisers bid on placement.

Google’s desire to bring AdSense to online games and ultimately dominating the game-related advertising business completed after 1 year ( Read Google Adsense Exploring Games - October 18, 2007 . Google's ad platform - AdSense for Games has operated in beta since early 2008. Game developers like Konami, Playfish and Zynga participated in the beta.

Click-to-buy links are available only to YouTube users based in the U.S. Definitely Google plans to expand the feature to other content partners, as well as the international You Tube community. Currently these click-to-buy links nestled unobtrusively beneath the video and its sharing options, and just above the comments. Currently these links will take users to online stores such as Apple's iTunes or Amazon.com

Google - Memorable History Events from Newpaper

2008-09-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

Google said it is looking to make old newspapers search able online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.

The effort involves the archives of dozens of newspaper titles and expands on a two-year-old effort by Google to work with two major US newspapers — the New York Times and Washington Post — to index old papers in Google News Archive.

Not only will you be able to search these newspapers, you’ll also be able to browse through them exactly as they were printed — photographs, headlines, articles, advertisements and all

Google product manager Punit Soni said in the blog post.

The new papers range from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “the first newspaper West of the Alleghenies” (the Allegheny Mountains), to the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, which has
continuously published for 244 years, making it North America’s oldest lasting newspaper.

You can read old historical events at here like :
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s coverage of Neil Armstrong’s (and Edwin Aldrin’s) 1969 moon walk at http://tinyurl.com/man-on-the-moon/ .

“The goal is no different than Google Book Search,” company spokesman Gabriel Stricker said, referring to Google’s broad-based effort to work with major academic libraries around the world to scan older, out-of-print books. “It is just getting a lot of published offline content online.”

Ecommerce video trends - Retailer Marketing product with entertainment

2008-08-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

ecommerce companies are using blog to posts photos, videos to build awareness of their product. See the example of

. SeenON
. Flypaper

SeenON provides consumers access into the world of shopping-enabled entertainment through its relationships with major networks, media partners, celebrities and brand marketers.

Chapter 10: Let It Be

Dahlia delves into Victory's dating life and coaches her on how to market a successful designer image.

Carpe Threesome

Nico introduces Victory to the new faces of Bonfire, and Nico and her husband quarrel over the after party.

As seen above, SeenON provide catalog of the products seen on TV, films, music videos, sports and on the red carpet. SeenON provide its viewers to purchase the product they see on screen.

. Bluefly.com, an online retailer of designer clothes, updates customers on fashion-related news through its blog Flypaper (flypaper.bluefly.com).

Flypaper cater to women who cared about what was currently fashionable, instead of selling discounted clothes that might or might not still be in vogue. Flypaper might feature pictures of the runway models in the latest Milan show or full-length shots of random, fashionable pedestrians

Google Lively - Exciting Room

2008-07-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

Google invite you to be part of Lively. Google claims that it provide you exciting experience. Google lively lets you interact and express yourself with avatars, within rooms you create.

What Google says about Google Lively :

Socialize in 3D places on the web: Lively by Google has interactive 3D places on web pages where visitors can see each other's avatars and chat. Customize your avatar and decorate rooms to add another dimension to social networking!

Express yourself: Your avatar represents you. Pick a character that suits your personality or mood and customize it to make it unique. Dress your avatar to express your style. Use your avatar's animations to add some body language to chats!

Create and share your own places: Anybody can create and publish their own room. Pick a room shell that provides a good foundation and decorate it any way that you can imagine. Invite people to visit your room -- they can decorate it too !

Google Lively consist of Catalog which enable you to :

* Chat with your friends or meet new contacts online.
* Create and decorate your own room - and invite your friends over.
* Personalize your surroundings with an ever-growing catalog of avatars, outfits,
furniture, and rooms to build up.

Do you create any Room in Google Lively ? No ! Then you are missing a exiting Virtual World.

LinkedIn - dynamically targeted DirectAds ( dynamic CPM text advertising platform )

2008-07-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

Unmatched Access to Professionals
Use LinkedIn DirectAds to find the perfect audience for your business with highly-targeted text advertising.

LinkedIn is currently running, dubbed DirectAds, a dynamic CPM text advertising platform currently being soft-launched with no offical word from the company just yet.

What we can gather from the information available on the website, advertisers will be able to dynamically target ads by age, gender, geography, educational institution, industry, and seniority. Minimum order size for an advertisement is $25, with the minimum number of impressions dependant on the targeting audience chosen by the advertiser, who will conveniently be identifiable through its own LinkedIn presence. This also means the advertiser has to have a profile on the website, and LinkedIn says they are limiting advertisers by completeness of profile, number of connections, date of profile creation and a number of other factors.

Read in Detail : LinkedIn prepping for monetization with dynamically targeted DirectAds

25 High Volume Search Terms that Grew MOST

2008-06-25T02:55:00.000-07:00

The chart below shows the 25 high volume search terms that grew the most from April 2008 to May 2008.
While it appears that sporting events, celebrity gossip and big-budget marketing pushes caused spikes in various search term referrals, gloomy search phrases top the list

* The most common theme among the top 25 searches is death (indicated by black bars). While this may help to explain why the news tend to focus on morbid events, it also speaks to the fact that people turn (heavily) to search engines when trying to find more info on contemporary events.

* Gossip and entertainment related searches also bubble to the top (purple bars), highlighted by both Kimberly Caldwell and David Cook (American Idol contestants and alleged lovebirds) shown making the list.

* Seasonal trends can be pretty dynamic (blue bars), with Mother’s day Idea’s and economic stylus related terms peppering the top 25 growers.

* Large product and movie launches caused spikes in movie and video game related terms (green bars) as The Strangers, The Happening, Sex in The City, GTA4 and Wii Fit all made the list. What’s interesting here is that movie terms seem to coincide with advertising while game related search terms are (apparently) related to usage.

Source : Top Moving Search Terms – Tragedy drives traffic

Google Analytics - offline-to-online reporting features: TV Campaigns reporting.

2008-06-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics added new more offline-to-online reporting features: TV Campaigns reporting. This report represents a further integration between Google Analytics and AdWords, and also a helpful tool for anyone to measure the online effects of offline marketing.

The current available TV metrics include:

* Impressions delivered
* Number of ad plays
* Cost
* CPM

You can now track these metrics and plot them alongside metrics already within Google Analytics, such as conversions, visits, and time on site. This way, you can see correlations between a TV campaign and your website traffic.

Read More about New Analytics Report: TV Campaigns

Google Image Ads

2008-04-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

Google calls the process VisualRank, after the company's signature PageRank technology

VisualRank, is an algorithm that blends image-recognition software methods with Google's own process for weighting and ranking images that appear similar.

Image search technology isn't new, of course. Social network Flickr, now a part of Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), uses tagging to collect photos into relevant bunches. And both Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), at Live.com, and Google already have engines tuned to search for images. The problem is one of irrelevant results.

Read More Get Ready for Google Image Ads

Enterprise 2.0 - Small Businesses Won’t Adopt it

2008-04-23T04:50:00.000-07:00

Enterprise 2.0 is a marketing term used to sell a re-branding of ideas that have been around for many years. Enterprise 2.0 represents a convergence of multiple technologies and disciplines.To implement Enterprise 2.0 you needs to start with an understanding of people, processes, and their use of materials and information in your company’s pursuits of acquiring and fulfilling business transactions.

There seems to be somewhat of a shock wave going around the web, due to the startling revelation that 68% of small businesses have no plans to adopt “Enterprise 2.0″ initiatives.

Here’s a look at a chart from the Forrester report.

Source : Here’s the Reason Why Small Businesses Won’t Adopt “Enterprise 2.0″

Viral Marketing : Salon.com, reached over 1 million

2008-03-19T23:36:00.000-07:00

"Salon.com could have attracted a lot more links by publishing the release on their own site and syndicating it from there but all in all it is a great example of how a case study about your viral marketing can actually be as effective as the campaign itself"

"Yahoo Buzz sent Salon.com over a million unique visitors after the story was promoted to the Yahoo homepage."

Read more at Leveraging your success Salon.com style

Salon.com Reaches Over 1 Million Unique Users in 1 Day

You know Top Online Marketing Tactics ?

2008-02-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

by Lee Odden

Here are the top ten tactics rankings so far out of 35 listed and the percentage of votes for each.

With the vote count at over 150, I’ve updated the top ten as of 02/13/08:

* Blogging (27%)
* Email marketing (16%)
* Search engine optimization (14%)
* Pay per click (9%)
* Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn) (5%)
* Blogger relations (4%)
* Online public relations (3%)
* Viral marketing (3%)
* Free content (white papers) (3%)
* Corporate web site (3%)

The original top ten are here from 02/05/08:

* Blogging (25%)
* Search engine optimization (14%)
* Email marketing (12%)
* Pay per click (8%)
* Blogger relations (6%)
* Online public relations (5%)
* Viral marketing (5%)
* Corporate web site (4%)
* Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn) (4%)
* Webinars/Teleconference (3%)

Blogging really does make sense because it can serve as a platform for so many other tactics including SEO, email (archiving newsletters), blogger relations, PR, viral marketing, a compliment to the corporate site, a touchpoint for social networking and a place to promote webinars.

If you’re a company doing business and/or marketing online and aren’t using a blog in some way, you’re really at a disadvantage. The longer a company goes without a blog of some sort, the greater an advantage their blogging competition will have. Of course, not ALL companies need to have a blog, but the number of qualified reasons not to is getting smaller each day.

Source / Read More Top Ten Online Marketing Tactics

Tech Companies Logos

2008-02-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

Adobe Systems

In 1982, forty-something programmers John Warnock and Charles Geschke quit their work at Xerox to start a software company. They named it Adobe, after a creek that ran behind Warnock’s home. Their first focus was to create PostScript, a programming language used in desktop publishing.

When Adobe was young, Warnock and Geschke did everything they could to save money. They asked family and friends to help out: Geschke’s 80-year-old father stained lumber for shelving, and Warnock’s wife Marva designed Adobe’s first logo.

Apple Inc.

Canon

Google

Source / Read More at The Evolution of Tech Companies Logos

Top Five Internet Trends in 2007

2008-01-18T00:33:00.000-08:00

Top 5 Internet trends as identified by Keynote in 2007 Top Internet Trends in 2007.

1. Impact of Social Networking and Community
Social networking and community sites on the Web are having a huge impact on business and society in general.

2. Web 2.0 Applications Becoming Mainstream
Web sites are moving away from traditional Web page technologies and towards an online experience that is more congruent with the desktop experience. Web 2.0 technologies are coming into the mainstream in a big way

3. New Technologies Putting a Strain on the Web
Many companies assume most consumers are accessing the Web with quality high-speed connections, but that is not necessarily reality.

4. Traditional Web Stalwarts Continue to Innovate
The companies that have helped to build and shape the Web as we know it, continue to innovate. Although relative new comers, such as YouTube or Digg, continue to usher in the latest applications and trends, the titans of the Internet are not resting on their laurels.

5. Online Segmentation
There is increased segmentation of online groups and audiences as the Internet grows and matures. A social networking sites make it easy for consumers to form groups and connections online based on interests and demographics, and Web leaders, such as Yahoo!, are targeting market segments through micro-sites such as OMG, which targets teenage girls.

Source / Read full story on : The Web in 2007 – Top Five Internet Trends

Report - Increased Use of Video-sharing Sites

2008-01-15T01:59:00.000-08:00

The basic findings in a National Phone Survey that ended in December show:

# 48% of Internet users said they had ever visited a Video-Sharing Site such as YouTube. A year ago, in December 2006, 33% of internet users said they had ever visited such sites. That represents growth of more than 45% year-to-year.

# 15% of respondents said they had used a Video-Sharing Site "yesterday" -- the day before they were contacted for our survey. A year ago, 8% had visited such a Site "yesterday." Thus, on an average day, the number of users of Video Sites nearly doubled from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007.

Source : Online Activities & Pursuits - Increased Use of Video-sharing Sites

E-Commerce Cross-Selling and Up-Selling

2008-01-04T01:44:00.000-08:00

How do the top online retail stores get conversion rates of 5%, 10%, even 15%? One factor is that they provide cross-sell opportunities for shoppers. This merchandizing technique is important for both retail and B2B e-commerce sites that offer more than just a handful of products.

Cross-Selling

Cross-selling is offering a similar product to what a shopper is looking at -- either an alternative model or accessories that go with the product (add-ons). Using a cross-selling strategy in your store is likely to result in:

1. Customers finding exactly what they are looking for, thus increasing the rate
of order completion, and/or
2. Customers adding accessories to their original selection, thus increasing the
order total.

In addition to related products, many merchants use cross-selling capabilities to display popular items and high margin products throughout the store. Who knows ? A customer may just see the item and buy it on impulse along with his original selection.

Up-Selling

Up-selling is offering a better and more expensive product. If the shopper exhibits behaviors of going to a product page or placing an item in the shopping cart, you can be pretty sure he has an interest in that product. If he selects the good model, also show him the better and best models.

Source / Read More : E-Commerce Cross-Selling and Up-Selling - Web Marketing Today

16 Marketing Techniques For The Holiday Season

2007-12-28T02:06:00.000-08:00

According to a recent Forrester report, online sales are expected to reach $33 billion dollars this year so be sure you get a piece of that huge pie! This is a 21% increase over 2006 as more and more people adjust to online shopping.

Here are some ideas that could help you get a slice of that holiday shopping pie:

You could offer a free holiday gift with every order over $25 or any set amount.

Offer free or discounted shipping with every order.

Send Christmas cards to your mailing list offering them a special discount or deal.

Offer a gift wrapping service for your customers. Make their shopping as easy and hassle free as possible.

If you do home parties, have a Christmas shopping party to split the shipping costs and/or wrapping costs. Have a holiday themed party with gift certificates and free samples.

Start a gift referral club with other businesses. If a customer is looking for something you do not offer, give them a place they can get it and other businesses will do the same for you.

Have a holiday themed contest on your site to draw in more customers.

Work with charity. Offer $x off for everyone who brings in a old toy for kids' charity. For online shoppers have a donation button. This will attract customers as well as provide good publicity for your company.

Give a free holiday tips report out with every purchase. Provide tips on saving money, holiday decorating, etc.

Make sure everything on your site is working and up to date. Build a special holiday section for your holiday customers.

Have a gift ideas section for your shoppers who have trouble picking out gifts. Be sure and have gift certificates or cards available as well.

Mail out gift idea cards to your customers/mailing list.

Send out coupons with a chance at a free gift with every coupon returned.

Do not forget customer service. Provide a little extra for your customers so they come back for more.

Become the company with the most Christmas spirit. Donate a portion of all sales to a popular children's charity.

Provide a quality product at a good price along with good customer service and your customers are bound to remain loyal to your company.

Take these ideas and add to them. Once you start trying new ideas you will be able to think of more and more. Don't be afraid to try new and creative ideas. Test the results and keep track of what works and what doesn't. What might not work in spring might be very effective during the holiday season.

The holiday marketing season is a chance for you to expand your business and gain more customers, but you must give them a reason to come to you and then to come back to you!

About the Author:
Find lots more tips, articles, and resources at http://www.SeymourProducts.com. Seymour Products also offers you a chance to own your own successful home business with unlimited support. Start your own ebook store - huge selection of ebooks & software only $1.00 each: http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell

Launch Your Affiliate Program

2007-12-28T01:38:00.000-08:00

By WorkZ Staff

Once you've developed an affiliate program, it is time to decide what types of affiliate sites you want to target and plan a marketing campaign to get their attention. Visit each applicant's site to determine if it is appropriate for inclusion into your network, and be prepared to provide members with the necessary links and graphics to promote your affiliate program on their site.

Decide What Types of Affiliates You Want to Attract

When you are ready to launch your affiliate program, you'll want to be proactive about finding the right types of affiliates, rather than just accepting those that come to you. Of course, you will want to target sites that are credible and share your target market. You may also want to attract affiliates that are already successfully involved in other affiliate programs, because they will already have a steady stream of customers coming to them to make purchases. To find active affiliate sites, visit top affiliate merchants, such as Amazon.com or CDNow, which typically offer links to their affiliates. Send an e-mail letter to sites that share your target market to introduce your own program.
Market Your Affiliate Program

With a target audience in mind, spread the word about your affiliate program. Again, many merchants choose to join an Affiliate Network, such as CommissionJunction, LinkShare, or IncentaClick, to leverage their marketing advantages. If that's not in your budget, however, grassroots marketing can be effective in promoting your program. It includes:

Incorporating banners that tout your new affiliate program into your online marketing plan.

Giving your new affiliate program a prominent position on your site and/or including details in your site's "What's New" section. Provide as much detail as possible about the program potential affiliates may be turned off by a program that is poorly defined or confusing.

Providing selling tips for affiliates. Affiliates will be more interested in joining your program if they know that you will assist them with increasing sales by identifying selling opportunities. These tips will be based on your selling experiences. Perhaps you have found that placement within a certain area of your site increases sales. Or maybe you have developed a way for affiliates to describe the program to customers that works especially well. Try to make these tips as clear as possible.

Including details in your blog, electronic newsletter or other e-mail promotions. Your current customers will appreciate knowing that your site is growing. Note: In all marketing efforts, be careful to avoid making unrealistic claims about your program's expected performance, and never promote your program through the use of spam.
Evaluate Affiliate Applications

As tempting as it may be, because of the potential for increased revenue and traffic on your site, it is not advisable to accept affiliates indiscriminately. You need to cater to the specific interests of your target audience and make sure the merchant's products are complementary to your own. Develop a list of criteria to use to ensure that potential affiliates are a good match for your program.

Provide Technical Requirements for Affiliates

In your Web site's affiliate section, you will need to provide company logos, banners, or art that should be used by your affiliates on their home page, online store page, or some other prominent location to promote your products. You may want to offer different graphics to correspond with different product lines, so you'll have to work with affiliates to determine which ones are right for their program. You will also want to provide detailed instructions on how to copy these images.

You should also display a short description, review, or other reference for affiliates to use to describe each product included in your affiliate program, or provide a link to the appropriate page or pages. If you require specific placement of these descriptions, provide instructions to your affiliates on your site describing how it should work.

You will need to provide affiliates with a unique code to use for their links to identify sales coming from their sites. These coded links will take affiliates' viewers to the corresponding ordering page for products on your site. At that point, your staff will take over to close the sale, including managing order forms, processing payments, shipping, cancellations, returns, and related customer service duties.

Finally, it is a good idea to provide a frequently asked questions (FAQ) list to answer any commonly asked questions about the technical requirements of your site. Since proper order tracking depends on proper link formatting, you may lose sales, and your affiliates may lose commissions, if any of the technical elements aren't properly formatted. For any questions not covered in the FAQ list, be sure to provide a telephone number and/or e-mail address to your customer service department.

About the Author:
The WorkZ staff is made up of gurus in many areas of expertise including Sales, Marketing, all aspects of the Internet, Technology, even starting and running businesses.

Launch Your Affiliate Program

Facebook Applications Open Up for search engines

2007-12-25T01:52:00.000-08:00

The canvas page of Facebook pages can now be made accessible to the public.

There are two main benefits to this:

(1) If your app runs exclusively on Facebook (aka – it’s not an extension of your existing site) you now have a page you can use to promote it that doesn’t require someone to login to Facebook.

(2) Search engines will now be able to index your apps. So, if someone types into Google “music apps for Facebook,” they might get a link to iLike or Pandora’s canvas page.

Source / Read more : Facebook Applications Open Up (for search engines)

List of B2B Marketing Blogs

2007-12-21T23:43:00.000-08:00

There are blogs that talk about B2B marketing and more topics like search engine marketing, copy writing etc.

B2B Marketing Blogs

10,000 Marshmallows – ViaMetric's blog focuses on primarily on marketing accountability. The name: How do you eat 10,000 marshmallows? One at a time.
Accelerating IT Sales – Barry Harrigan blogs about online strategies that shorten your sales cycle.
Aggressive Small Business Marketing – Big thoughts, ideas and how-tos for aggressive, fast-growth businesses and the entrepreneurs who fuel them, by Michael Cage.
Anything Goes Marketing – Chad Horenfeldt shares tips and tricks to improve your online marketing skills.
Approvr Blog – Topics in marketing operations, including managing proofing and approvals.
Ask Justin Hitt Blog – Addressing challenges faced by Sales and Marketing Management of industrial and high-tech business-to-business organizations.
B2B Email Marketing Best Practices – Tamara Gielen focuses on B2B email marketing from a doer's perspective.
B2B Insight - Ephraim Cohen's writes about corporate communications and PR from a B2B perspective.
B2B International – B2B market research consultancy focused on international issues.
B2B Knowledge Sharing – Scott Gillum of MarketBridge blogs about the constantly changing world of B2B Sales and Marketing.
B2B Lead Generation Blog - Brian Carroll's blog focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.
B2B Marketing Blog (German) – Warum technologieunternehmen die macht der marke entdecken sollten (Google translates as: Why technology enterprises should discover the power of the brand).
B2B Marketing Confidential - Andy Hasselwander provides news and insights from across the B2B marketing landscape.
B2B SEO - Galen De Young blogs about Business-to-Business Search Engine Optimization.
B2B SEO Blog - Dave Martin shares ideas about internet marketing for B2B companies.
B2B Web Strategy – Business-useful, thought-leadership information about driving traffic, engaging visitors, conversion, measurement, and internet marketing from the folks at eMagine.
B2B Web Strategy – eMagine's blog about driving traffic, engaging visitors, conversion, measurement, and internet marketing.
B2Blog – Dave J uses his perspective as a marketer in the trenches to write about the dramatic changes affecting industrial marketing / B2B marketing.
B2Bridge.eu –A pan-European community of business and industrial marketers.
Bad Marketing – Todd Ebert tells the good, the bad and the ugly of B2B marketing, and gives ideas for on improving it.
Bark in B2B Marketing – Extraprise's corporate blog about B2B database marketing and marketing automation.
BeeToBee – Not a blog… like Digg for B2B Marketing. Check it out.
Better Closer Blog – Bill Rice's blog gives tips and techniques that will have you turning more prospects into customers.
Bill Hartzer – Bill writes about corporate website marketing and search engine optimization for B2B companies. (Bill's website is Corporate Website Marketing and his LiveJournal blog republishes press releases about Search Engine Optimization and B2B website tips.
Biznology – Where business and technology come together (by IBM's search marketing expert, Mike Moran).
Blogfrey – From B-to-B branding and integrated marketing communications agency Godfrey.
Branding and Marketing – Chris Brown writes for business professionals with an interest in branding and marketing, with a focus on building awareness.
B-to-B Tech Marketing Blog – Conversations about marketing to IT and developers by Pauline Beall of CMP Media.
Building a Sales Machine – Aaron Ross writes about accelerating growth, reducing uncertainty, and creating a predictable sales machine in the on-demand era.
Business of Marketing and Branding – David Koopmans writes about marketing and branding in the Information Age.
Buzz Marketing for Technology – Paul Dunay from BearingPoint shares innovative ideas and information for marketing technology companies.
cadenceblog – Ideas, tools, and trends in IT B2B Marketing and Sales.
Click To Lead – Michael Ortner of Capterra writes this guide to software marketing and online lead generation.
Customers Rock – Becky Caroll shares a B2B perspective on how businesses can make sure their customer experiences rock.
CustomerThink – Thought leadership about customer-centric business strategy from the folks formerly known as CRMGuru.
Dealing with Darwin - Geoffrey Moore (author of Crossing the Chasm and other books on high-tech marketing) writes occasionally about B2B marketing strategy.
Demandblog – Best practices in B2B demand generation (back again after a long pause?).
Elevation: From Thought Leadership to Market Leadership – Britton Manasco helps companies develop and tell their stories of customer success.
Enterprise Software Executive – David Gearhart's blog is dedicated to helping enterprise software executives increase sales and improve marketing.
Freaking Marketing – Robert Rosenthal shares all types of marketing tips, including B2B marketing and lead generation categories.
Guerrilla Consulting – Michael McLaughlin helps consultants market themselves with breakthrough tactics for winning profitable clients.
I Confess – Rob DeRobertis shares stories in B2B high tech marketing.
Idea Sellers – Daniel Sitter writes about better tips for selling.
Industrial Search Engine Marketing – Blog by ecreativeworks, a web design and search engine marketing /SEO firm focused on Industrial Marketing.
Jim Logan's Blog – B2B Consulting and Copywriting
LeadBuying.com – Conversations on lead buying, including a blog and an open forum and wiki.
Life as a B2B Technology Marketer – Paul Woods is a Marketing Technologist based in Brisbane, Australia.
Manhattan Marketing Maven – Danny Flamberg shares practical hands-on marketing and advertising tips.
Marcom Writer Blog – Dianna Huff delivers news, riffs, and commentary on all things relating to B2B marketing communications.
marketfusions – Shivonne Byrne's thoughts on strategy, business, marketing, content & creativity.
Marketing Interactions - Ardath Albee writes thought-provoking posts about marketing and sales integration, shortening sales cycles, and improving sales tools.
Marketing MO – Marketing tips from the trenches for B to B marketers, executives, entrepreneurs & consultants.
Marketing Monitor – Search Engine Marketing articles from Enquiro.
Marketing Operations at Work – Marketing Operations Partners blogs about the emerging discipline of Marketing Operations.
Marketing Productivity Blog – Jim Novo writes about moving from a low accountability to high accountability business model.
Marketing Today – Peter DeLegge blogs about marketing with special attention given to internet marketing and business-to-business marketing issues and trends.
McBru Blog – From advertising and PR agency McClenahan Bruer Communications.
Modern B2B Marketing - Jon Miller shares Marketo's latest thinking about B2B marketing, from best practices in search engine marketing to lead nurturing to marketing accountability.
My Educated Guess –TechTarget’s Client Consulting Team blog about topics such as branding, positioning, and lead generation.
Opinionated Marketers – Maureen Rogers and John Whiteside share their opinions on marketing (not all B2B).
Out of my Gord – Gord Hotchkiss blogs about Search Engine Marketing for B2B companies.
Pacifica Group – Sridhar Ramanathan writes about driving revenue growth for technology firms.
PowerPR - B2B Marketing – Business to business relations as they relate to marketing.
PPC b2b – News, articles and tips from the Web Marketing world.
PR2.0 – Brian Solis' blog fuses public relations, social media, and new media marketing.
RefreshWeblog – John Rasco blogs about B2B web marketing and SEO news.
Revenue Journal - Kristin Zhivago's writes about revenue-increasing insights, strategies and techniques for CEOs and entrepreneurs.
Sales Lead Insights - Mac McIntosh blogs about ways to boost your business with B2B marketing and B2B sales lead generation.
Savvy Internet Marketing – Pam Swingley discusses internet marketing for technology and B2B firms.
Selling to Big Companies – Jill Konrath's step-by-step guide for sellers who want to get their foot in the door of large corporations.
SEO-Space – Organic search engine marketing thoughts and insights with a B2B twist.
Shiblog– Prescott Shibles shares B2B internet marketing and media insight.
ShopTalk – John Caddell gives a daily look at business-to-business marketing, highlighting trends, focusing on what works and what doesn't.
Simplenomics – Mike Sigers blogs about sales, marketing and customer service the Simplenomics Way.
Six Sigma Selling – Michael Webb writes about improving sales processes, including sales and marketing integration.
Small Business B2B Marketing – Scott Thompson occasionally writes about marketing trends & insight for small business-to-business companies.
Stupid Marketing – Kevin Epstein promotes great marketing and shins a spotlight on the spectacularly stupid things that sometimes get committed in the name of marketing.
The Business Of Business Marketing – Mike Bawden shares insights, information and advice on B2B marketing and brand building.
The Complex System – Jeff Solomon’s Blog about sales lead management, software automation, business strategy & personal methodology.
The Credibility Branding Blog – Jennifer McLean blogs about accelerating sales through credibility.
The Innovative Marketer – Steve Gershik shares news and developments from the demand generation industry.
The Lonely Marketer – The small company Marketing Manager can be planning print advertisement and mailings in the morning and discussing blogs and optimization over lunch. Patrick Schaber discusses these topics and everything in between.
The Marketing Excellence blog – Eric Kintz of HP discusses key industry trends (such as the social web) and best practices in building the future Marketing function in the tech industry.
The Scrappy Software Marketer – Andrew Kordek shares thoughts, expressions and general tidbits of being a scrappy software marketer.
The Social Media Marketing Blog – Scott Monty's perspectives on B2B implications of social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies and companies.
Tyco Blog – Tim Young, formerly of the B2B Lead Generation & Management Blog, writes about sales, marketing, and strategy for business owners and executives.
vSente's Blog –Ideas for waging and winning battles for market share, courtesy of Mike Smock.
WebMama's Look at the Web – WebMama, aka Barb Coll, focuses on search engine marketing for B2B companies.
Writing Whitepaper's Blog – Michael A. Stelzner shares the latest trends in writing and marketing whitepapers.

Original Source : B2B Marketing blogs

Feeds from being returned in Google's search results

2007-12-21T23:03:00.000-08:00

Google prevent feeds from being returned in Google's search results.
Reasoning behind Google dropping RSS feeds from the results according to Official Google Webmaster Central Blog are --

. Feeds increase the likelihood that users see duplicate search results.
. Users clicking on a feed may miss valuable content available only in the HTML page.

The Power of Social Shopping Networks

2007-12-12T03:00:00.000-08:00

With the vast majority of Americans researching products on the internet before they purchase them in stores or on the web, it’s no surprise that a whole new form of shopping is emerging. “Social shopping” is the intriguing offspring of social networking and online shopping, and it can offer your growing business just the marketing leg up it needs.

Unlike the many retail sites that display products for sale, many increasingly popular social shopping sites (some still in beta testing stages) consist of product listings from site users who recommend their favorites, often with a strong emphasis on what’s hot, new and exciting. And insiders know that listing their own products on the right social shopping sites can build buzz that leads to sales.

This accessible form of word-of-mouth marketing offers a wealth of opportunities for entrepreneurs with limited budgets. To help you navigate these new waters, let’s take a look at why and how social shopping works.

1. Online research leads to sales. Almost 90 percent of respondents to a BIGresearch “Consumer Intentions and Actions” survey conducted in June 2006 said they occasionally or regularly research products online before buying them in a store. When it comes to online purchasing, a study released by Yahoo! and OMD found that nearly three-quarters of the people surveyed use trusted, familiar websites when purchasing online, and the majority (54 percent) say the internet is their most trusted shopping information source. So no matter whether you sell exclusively online, through a brick-and-mortar store or both, influencing online shoppers can have a profound effect on sales.

2. Peer-to-peer recommendations deliver credibility. Social shopping websites allow for word-of-mouth marketing at its best. The internet empowers consumers and accelerates the flow of information. Product recommendations that come from peers may be more trusted, so site visitors may return more often and be more likely to spread the good word and purchase the products they learn about on the sites. Social shopping sites reflect users’ personal tastes and allow for online conversation. Visitors can learn what’s popular, get shopping ideas and follow links to products they wouldn’t necessarily find on their own.

3. Sites have distinct personalities. Here’s a sampling of the hottest social shopping sites.

* ThisNext.com: Users can browse recommended products, add them to their wish lists, recommend or find out where to buy them, and create themed lists of their own.
* Crowdstorm.com: This site measures the buzz around products based on user recommendations. Popular items go to the top of the list.
* Kaboodle.com: Users create wish lists with photos and links to products for sale online. It’s easy to post a summary of anything found on the internet.
* Stylehive.com: This is the hot site for women’s fashions and interests.
* Wists.com: Users tend to focus on interesting new products and share links to the ones they want to buy.

4. Social shopping sites are An open door for entrepreneurs. Right now, any business owner can use them to build positive word-of-mouth that leads to sales. But you’d better move quickly. Some sites are testing free-use models as they build traffic and will likely adopt paid structures as they reach critical mass, perhaps through revenue generated by marketing agreements with vendors and retailers or by selling the trend information generated by users.

As with any marketing campaign, your first step is to get to know the media. Bookmark your favorite social shopping sites and learn how they work. Test the waters by posting one or two products with their URLs, taking special care to send your click-throughs to specialized landing pages so you can measure your results. Then have fun and stay active--and keep your postings interesting by sharing products others will want to buzz about.

Kim T. Gordon, author ofMaximum Marketing, Minimum Dollars: The Top 50 Ways to Grow Your Small Business. Her new e-book, Big Marketing Ideas for Small Budgets, is available exclusively from Entrepreneur atwww.smallbizbooks.com.

The internet will become the World's third largest advertising

2007-12-05T02:18:00.000-08:00

The internet will put back magazines as the world's third-largest medium of advertising in 2010, according to industry experts.

Spending on internet advertising increased by 25 per cent during the third quarter of 2007, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, with returns of $5.2 billion (£2.5 billion).

By 2010, internet ad spend as a share of all media will break the 15% mark in 10 regional markets around the world, according to ZenithOptimedia.

Currently just four markets have reached this milestone - Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

In these four markets the internet is predicted to top 20% of all media spend by 2010.

Read more at Internet to become third biggest ad medium

Introduction to New Marketing & Media Trends

2007-11-29T22:11:00.000-08:00

Introduction to New Marketing & Media Trends

What is new marketing ? And which new media trends can be used (from blogs to vodcasts and more)?

Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose

2007-11-29T03:37:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose, the Premier Silicon Valley Event, On Roster in 2008 for 10th Year Popular Marketing Event Has Already Broken Record for Attendee and Sponsor/Exhibitor Registration NumbersSAN JOSE, Calif.--(Business Wire)--Savvy search engine marketers are awaiting the return of SearchEngine Strategies (SES) San Jose, the interactive searchmarketing event of the year where delegates learn first hand thestrategies and tactics available to them to grow their businessonline.

The event, to be held at the San Jose Convention Center,August 18-21, 2008, is already drawing unprecedented interest fromattendees and exhibitors alike.

Source / Read more : Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose

YouTube Will Lead to the Internet’s Downfall

2007-11-27T23:34:00.000-08:00

A study conducted by the Nemertes Research Group points to the conclusion that the constantly increasing use of video services such as YouTube could see the Internet reach breaking point in just three years’ time.

According to the PC Advisor’s Grant Gross, "the research firm says the flood of new video content could overwhelm the web by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to $137bn in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42bn to $55bn will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand."

Why the gloomy perspective ? I’m not sure how much you know about exafloods and I’m not sure that the word can actually have a plural form because it’s something like Noah’s flood: one and definitive one, no chance for a second. The exaflood is caused by the explosion of video content available on the Internet and the amount of data created by the users: 161 exabytes of new data just this year. An exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes or, if you like, 1.1 billion gigabytes.

Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, an advocacy group particularly interested ion the matter, says that "The responsibility for keeping up with this growing demand lies with backbone providers and national policy makers. It takes a digital village. Certainly, infrastructure providers have plenty to do. You’ve seen billions in investment, and you’re seeing ongoing billions more."

Source : YouTube Will Lead to the Internet’s Downfall - This is not a prank!

YouTube Tips: How To Market Via YouTube

2007-11-26T00:02:00.000-08:00

The Secret Strategies Behind Many "Viral" Videos via TechCrunch has an obsoletely awesome list of tips and techniques to make your YouTube videos a success. Here is a quick run down of some of those tips.

Making the Video:
- 15 - 30 second videos
- Ensure the video can be remixed over and over again
- The video can't be a blatant advertisement
- Add the shock factor
- Make your headline fake
- Sex works

Reaching Most Viewed Page:
- Tell Blogs
- Tell Forums
- MySpace pages
- Facebook friends and share features
- Use email lists
- Tell your friends

After you reach the most viewed page, then you can change your title, optimize your thumbnail image, increase your comments, push out more videos right away, and uniquely tag videos together.

How To Market Via YouTube

Dealing with the Competition in Enewsletter Ads

2007-11-22T03:01:00.000-08:00

Placing ads in e-mail newsletters is one of those areas where thinking out of the box pays off. In the b-to-b space, your target is receiving messages from competitors on a daily basis. Knowing how and when those competitors are buying and placing their ads will impact your placement and response rates.

Jeanniey Mullen suggests to start with this rule in mind: to maximize response, you need to compare the potential response rates for newsletters that best match your target audience with newsletters that may not be a perfect match but have less competitive congestion. You final response rate could be up to three times higher.

Source : Dealing with the Competition in Enewsletter Ads : B2B Marketing

Social Marketing: The New Facebook Conversational Marketing Proposition

2007-11-19T04:31:00.000-08:00

Last week Facebook announcement of a new range of social marketing options has given a good injection of innovation to the online advertising world, stuck, for already too long, on the stale, interruptive and unperforming banner-ad metaphor.

Social, conversational advertising options, as Facebook has just introduced, open up a new horizon of marketing opportunities that may have an enormous impact on the future of online advertising.

Social Marketing: The New Facebook Conversational Marketing Proposition - Social Ads And Company Pages

Secret Formula - Online video Marketing and Promotion

2007-11-19T02:38:00.000-08:00

Videos that have relevant and rich tags and descriptions will be found and will be forwarded. But there is nothing wrong with supercharging this process, and this is where promotion comes into play.

This is especially important as many video sites employ a "bubble up" methodology that promotes videos and content creators that receive the most views, subscribers, comments, ratings and forwards. Thus, then "bubble up" to the top of video sites and become even more popular. So in the video world, popularity begets more popularity.

Building a community is the single best method for promoting a video.

This isn't an overnight process, but can be done by using the infrastructure of the various video-sharing and social networking sites. This means subscribing to people's videos and leaving creative comments so that people click on your profile. Also, it's important (and fun) to befriend people and invite them to subscribe to your video channels. You can also join and be a meaningful contributor to various newsgroups and chat rooms.

If you can pull off these things, you've just created your own set of groupies that will watch your content just because of the relationship, and this applies to both companies and individuals. Yet another way to build community is to write an interesting blog and create a following, as well as responding to the blog posts of others. Also, you'll be surprised how open bloggers and category experts will be to plug your video in exchange for a "sneak peak" or an interview.

Also consider submitting your videos to other "Web 2.0" websites that employ voting systems to promote content.

Some of the most popular sites are Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. As your video or article gains more votes, the video will attract even more attention and may even end up in a featured or "top 10" type category which can generate hundreds of thousands of views in a day.

Generally, deploying videos to multiple sites makes sense as different sites have different content niches and audiences. Essentially, each site represents a community opportunity that you can tap into.

TubeMogul "Load and Track" is an easy tool to deploy to multiple sites at once. Here is a handy grid that provides some information on a few of the top video-sharing sites:

Information On Top Sharing Video Sites
published via Google Docs - updated automatically every 5 minutes


	Description	Demographics	Reg.	Upload	Notes
YouTube	No intro needed here	Evenly female/male audience, even age distribution, U.S. East and West coasts.	Easy	Fast review process, mainly automated	Experimenting with ad sharing
Yahoo! Video	An original video destination, but late to the game	Slight more male viewers, slightly older, even US geographic distribution	Medium	Relatively slow and unpredictable review process
MySpace	Primarily a social networking site, but video is still huge	High percentage of female and under 18 viewers	Easy	No review process. Videos go live immediately	Being rebranded as MySpaceTV
Metacafe	Popular worlwide, prides itself on community votes driving featured content	Skews towards older, more educated, male viewers	Easy	Fast human review process	Offers ad sharing
Google Video	Increasingly becoming more of a video search engine	Slightly more male viewers, disproportionately more Hispanic audience	Medium	Limited review process. Unlimited content length and size	Integrates with other Google apps like Web Albums and Picasa
Revver	One of the firrst video sites to offer ad revenue sharing	Slightly older, white male crowd	Easy	Discriminating human review process	Ads inserted into all videos
DailyMotion	The YouTube of Europe	Overwhelmingly white male. Higher age and income than most	Easy	Fast and easy	Growing in the US
Blip.tv	Publisher-friendly video sharing and distribution site	Slightly more male, slightly higher income level than most video sites, even ethnic distribution	Easy	Easy	Publisher can choose to insert ads
Brightcove	Trying to bring TV to the internet	Even split male and female. Few under 18 viewers	Easy	Easy	Ad share options available
Crackle	Focused on making people stars	Largely male, disproportionately African-American audience	Easy	Slick Flash upload tool allows many videos in one shot	Owned by Sony
Veoh	Focused on full-screen video programming for anyone with a broadband connection	Slightly more male viewers, predominantly Asian, distributed across all age categories	Medium	Easy	Investors include Michael Eisner and Time Warner

Source :
Online Video Marketing and Promotion

Marketing to Small Businesses: What You Need to Know

2007-11-13T23:26:00.000-08:00

Have you been wondering how to translate your success in the large-enterprise market into successful selling to the fast-growing and profitable small-business market?

Though you might be an expert when it comes to marketing to large businesses, selling your products and services to smaller companies requires an entirely different strategy.

While still on the rise, large-IT budgets are not increasing as quickly as small-business budgets. Worldwide small-business IT spending is increasing at 10% annually, while large-IT spending is increasing only 4%, according to Computer Economics.

Technology usage by small businesses is rapidly increasing as the price points of both hardware and software products drop and technology solutions advance along adoption curves. This makes the small business market an attractive new growth opportunity for many technology vendors, but the rules of success in the small business market are different from those of enterprise markets.

Product features, high-value price points, distribution channels, and the connection of technology solutions to the small business owner's overall success are critical to penetrating this market segment.

Misconceptions—and Actualities

The mistake many technology companies make is to view theses small businesses like a big enterprise, but with simpler needs and a small IT budget. These companies often believe they can delete a few features from their enterprise solutions and sell them at a lower price. This simplistic approach is a recipe for disaster.

In developing a small business market strategy, keep in mind the following key factors:

The "small business market" is not a single market. Small businesses vary by size, vertical, and the speed of adopting technology. In developing a plan to enter this market, technology vendors need to sub-segment the market based on customer needs and the solutions offered.
Small businesses have needs different those of large enterprises. They aren't interested in purchasing big solutions that have unnecessary functionality that will get in the way of what they're trying to accomplish. Keep in mind that these companies can't afford the overhead of a full-time IT staff or expensive implementation costs. The best solutions need to go in quick and be easy to maintain, while still providing scalability as the business grows.
Because of lower average selling points, the cost of sales for the small business market segments must be lower than for large enterprise sales. A direct model is virtually impossible to sustain profitably. Distribution through two-tier channel partners (VARs), online sales, and retail presence are critical to achieve the reach required and the price points needed to offer compelling solutions.
When marketing to small businesses, you will face new competition from many smaller and regional players that provide focused solutions for niche markets. If you want to successfully compete against these niche players, you need to be able to position your technology against a multitude of offerings in a low-touch sales model.
Small business buyers are much more apt to turn to the Internet and online communities for purchasing advice. With the growth of these online resources and communities, it's important to use some of your marketing dollars to tap into these large networks.

Examples of Success

Bear in mind that while many large technology vendors are entering the small business market, there are only a few notable success stories. For example, NetSuite's small business ERP solution offers the only online business application that streamlines both front- and back-office operations for small businesses, allowing companies to make "smarter, faster decisions" with accurate real-time metrics of crucial business data.

As one of the first online, on-demand ERP solutions, NetSuite got a head start in marketing to small businesses. The company's success is credited to its focus on its strategic price points as well as ease of purchasing additional features, along with the growth of its customers' businesses.

Meanwhile, Intuit, the maker of Quicken and QuickBooks, can justly claim it knows more about the current state of small businesses than anyone else, based on its dominance of the small-business accounting market. It recently teamed up with The Institute for the Future to produce a lengthy report titled the "Intuit Future of Small Businesses Report," which takes a look at what small businesses will look like in the coming decade. The report highlights how a new breed of entrepreneurs will emerge, including women, immigrants, and baby boomers. It is their interests, financial needs, and social goals that will fuel small-business growth over the next decade.

To reach this growing market, Intuit has aggressively pursued new ways to target these small businesses. Last year, Intuit partnered with Google to provide tools that help small businesses use its financial software to help market themselves online.

Meanwhile, the company maintains a site for small businesses with advice message boards and a free site called "JumpUp," which helps new businesses get up and running.

Intuit's success in marketing to small businesses stems from its intensive market research and closeness to its target market.

About Author -

Niti Agrawal is the principal and founder of Stage 4 Solutions, which can be contacted via www.stage4solutions.com or info@stage4solutions.com.

Source : http://www.marketingprofs.com/7/marketing-to-small-businesses-what-need-to-know-agrawal.asp?sp=1

Relationship Marketing and Cagora - No Bull Internet Marketing News

2007-11-12T00:20:00.000-08:00

Cagora is a new social networking revolution based around Web 2.0 and sooner or later there will be thousands of businesses joining this site in order to promote themselves. The most obvious reason will be that it costs them nothing to do so which is consistent with other social networking sites. The difference with Cagora however is that it provides the ability to have a business profile, upload photos, upload articles, upload videos and soon to come will be audio as well.

Cagora, like most Web 2.0 sites, attracts users who are not very receptive to the advertising flog. Those days are over, gone and finished. If you want to build your business online, then you need to look at the power that only relationship marketing can offer.

So what do I mean by relationship marketing ?

Relationship marketing is simply building relationships with prospective customers and clients through the provision of quality information and content.

Read more at Relationship Marketing and Cagora

Successful internet marketing strategy steps

2007-11-11T23:56:00.000-08:00

You need to develop a successful internet marketing strategy to get success in Internet world. You must develop and implement a strategic plan that includes all of the following:

• A list of Great Products
• A Professional Website specifically designed to sell Product
• A killer Marketing Strategy

Changing the Face of Brand Advertising Online

2007-11-06T23:32:00.000-08:00

Facebook is now an advertising network with Web-wide ambitions. Today’s announcement of Facebook Ads is the company’s play to become a major force in brand advertising online, as we reported previously. Facebook Ads is a new platform for creating and disseminating socially-aware ads on Facebook.

Changing the Face of Brand Advertising Online

The New Rules of Internet Marketing

2007-11-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

Internet marketing is very different — and if you're not knowledgeable, you can allocate budget improperly or direct your efforts toward an area that won't provide ROI.

We all know that traditional marketing is a monologue—companies deliver messages to the market and push customers through the consideration process. The Internet changes the ways we can communicate with customers, adding new media like blogs and Web video.

When I analyze what's happening today, here's the mistake I see most companies making: They use new online marketing tools to pursue traditional marketing goals such as driving awareness, consideration, adoption, and purchase.

That's a mistake, because the rules of traditional marketing were shaped by what could be accomplished using one-way mass media. Frankly, it was the only tool we had available—up until even just a few years ago. Now that Internet media enables two-way communication, the whole idea of moving customers through a structured consideration process needs to be revised.

The central goal of online marketing isn't awareness, it's engagement. And the five key tools to produce engagement are affinity, personality, community, co-creation, and advocacy.

Engagement means getting the customer involved with your company, with your products, and—often—with your people. You want your customers to get to know your organization and its values and services. When customers like what they see and experience, the relationship deepens, leading to affinity.

Affinity refers to leveraging the depth and interactivity of the Web to create a memorable relationship with the customer. Some of the best techniques for building affinity include being useful when a customer's not buying, sharing passions, extending the product online, and creating cool experiences.

Personality refers to how your company interacts with the world, both emotionally and rationally. The company's personality must be both distinctive and genuine. Unlike a brand image, it can't be faked. Your company's culture constrains the personality you can build online.

Community as a marketing tool challenges almost every expectation of traditional marketing. Instead of controlling the marketing process, the company hosts a social interaction in which customers develop most of the content. But good communities don't generally grow on their own—the most effective ones are carefully cultivated and subtly supervised.

A company that takes the wrong steps can easily kill a community before it even gets started. Communities at their optimum foster sharing, involve influencers and fans, and lead to involved customers who may even want to be co-creators with your company.

Co-creation occurs when people enjoy your product or services so much that they want to build on top of something you've already done—or create something new that could be used with your product line.

A fan who decides to make shoe laces with a school name woven in to match the basketball shoes you've manufactured is one example. It's the process of engaging customers online to help design the product.

Advocacy refers to a new way to describe customers who used to be considered hobbyists. But these folks go far beyond what we've known. They're users of a product or service who like tinkering with it beyond what the normal user might do.

Working with "influencers" is a very hot topic in online marketing, but it assumes that there's a small group of people in the population who drive purchases of all products. The reality is much more complicated.

A company's goal should be identifying, caring for, and training advocates—customers who are willing to help market your products to others. That's very different from sending press releases to a few influential bloggers.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Marketing done right is about much more than just communicating to customers—it's about shaping your company's offerings to match the needs of the marketplace. The Internet enables new business models, including one-to-many communication, that we could have only dreamed about previously. It provides us with tools we can use to guard against competitors, and lets us explore new possibilities.

There's tremendous opportunity here for CEOs. Internet marketing is a competitive weapon that can be used to underscore our leadership.
____________

Nilofer Merchant is the CEO of Rubicon Consulting (www.rubiconconsulting.com), a strategy and marketing consultancy based in Silicon Valley that solves complex business challenges for high-tech companies.