Though it is generally believed that seniors are not online, a report by Focalyst and Dynamic Logic, titled “Matures 62+ On the Internet: An Overlooked Audience”, finds that seniors spend an average of 44 minutes a day online. This demographic is very important to marketers, especially those in the Pharmaceutical and Insurance industries which are indenitified as the top categories that they are most engaged in.
Yellowbook, the leading independent publisher of print and online yellow pages directories nationwide announced yesterday the launch of a new integrated marketing campaign entitled “Say Yellow to the Future.” This campaign includes a new streamlined logo, a more condensed name to one word (formerly Yellow Book), new television commercials, and newly designed print directories that present the company as forward-thinking.
On Saturday, Microsoft withdrew its bid to takeover Yahoo!. CEO Steven Ballmer stated that the reason for Microsoft backing off from acquiring the company was the concern that Yahoo! would take action to make the company undesirable to Microsoft. One concern in particular was Yahoo!’s partnership to test Google’s search ads on its own search results pages.
Mobile marketing today is at a similar point in its evolution as online advertising was at in the ’90s. While the promise of Web-based marketing was large in 1996, adoption was slow until Internet access became readily accessible and affordable. Remember the days of pay-per-minute plans for Internet access? I still have a few $400 ISP bills I’d like to forget.
Thanks to developments such as the iPhone — combined with better mobile content and services — mobile search seemed to take some major strides during the second half of 2007. The advertising potential now resembles that of the early days of the Internet in both variety of search options available and the fragmented nature of the keyword search volume. Consumers are searching for a wide range of topics and products via their mobile devices, and they’re willing to accept advertising in exchange for content and services.
Read the rest of this entry …
The author of the book The Art of War, Sun Tzu, once said, “Every battle is won before it’s fought.” With everyone talking about the recession and rising gas prices, it seems that businesses will have to do “battle” in order to get through this downturn. In my last blog entry, “Recession: Blessing in Disguise?” I talked about the MarketingSherpa report and how businesses can leverage online marketing during these uncertain times. However, that report has a second part which talks about strategies that marketers are using to get through the slump. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about those strategies, plus add some data from eMarketer that backs them up. This post will explain how local businesses can use these strategies to their advantage. It can be your “business battle plan” if you will. Read the rest of this entry …
Three major players in Directory Assistance and Voice Search launched new applications for mobile DA and search use. Among the newly released applications is a human supported FreeMobile411 for Sprint phone users.
A new technology called virtualization is coming soon to a cell phone near you. Virtualization allows cell phones to utilize various mobile applications like web browsing, social networking, or gaming on one operating system as opposed to separate operating systems on separate phones.
Click here to read the full article.
The Internet retailer, Bigreds.com is accusing Yahoo! of click fraud. In their filed complaint, they state, “Affiliates of Overture used software programs, employed people, and/or directed people other than actual customers to click on plaintiffs links from keyword search results.” In 2006, Yahoo! had acknowleded the click fraud but had only offered a refund of $17,000, which apparently was not enough at the time when Bigreds.com had spent an estimated $900,000 over the course of four years (2002-2006). Hopefully the “little” guy will be able to make a stand against click fraud offenders everywhere.
Interactive Marketing may be getting a facelift this year according to MediaPost’s “Metrics are the New Black” article. According to a recent Forrester Research Survey, interactive channels are expected to be more effective at “delivering on every marketing goal including selling products or services online, driving traffic to a Web site, generating leads and, most importantly, building relationships and loyalty.” The survey also shows that the biggest difference between online and traditional marketing is the availabilty of key performance metrics that are not as accessible offline. However, the tried and true click-through-rate (CTR) may be too simplistic already. Marketers are now focusing on evaluating higher-level metrics–customer engagement, time spent and interaction rates, overall brand sentiment, and true brand conversions on the Web.
Google just announced that you can now embed local business videos into your business listing on Google Maps. These videos will be displayed under the “Photos and Videos” tab. Until now it seemed as though Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) had been the only ones looking to harness this potential. However, this recent partnership may give IYP publishers a run for their money, and hopefully make it more cost effective for businesses to implement this on IYP’s and local search sites such as SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com, or Citysearch.com.